Joss Whedon

If you’ve never heard of Joss Whedon, then you obviously don’t watch TV or movies, you probably don’t go on the internet that much, you definitely don’t read comic books or blogs, and you probably don’t know any men or women between the ages of 18 to 35. Now that we’ve made you annoyingly self-conscious, for those who legitimately don’t know who Joss is, he’s the creator of such fan favorite TV series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly (and its movie spin-off Serenity), and the upcoming FOX series Dollhouse; he’s worked as a writer on everything from Roseanne to Speed to X-Men; and, most recently, he created the very cool internet sensation Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog (you will believe that Neil Patrick Harris can sing!).

Basically, the guy is a one-man media empire, and we’re big fans of him here at MovieRetriever. Our only complaint about Joss is that we wished he worked MORE. Honestly, if people can clone annoying little dogs named Booger now (true story, look it up), why can’t we clone Joss Whedon Multiplicity-style and make him direct five or six films a year? (Somewhere right now, Joss is screaming "NOOOO!!!!") So, in a new feature here on the MovieRetriever Sing-Along Blog (go ahead and sing, no one’s stopping you), we’ve come up with five projects that we think would be perfect for Joss Whedon to direct and that, if we had unlimited Joss-time, we definitely wish he’d bring to the big screen.

1. Avenue Q

If there’s anything we know after years of watching Buffy and Angel, it’s that Joss Whedon loves two things - puppets and musical theatre, so having him helm a big-screen adaptation of Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx’s groundbreaking, Sesame Street-inspired Off-Broadway musical seems like a sure thing. For those of you who don’t know, Avenue Q is a musical that follows a cast of disaffected thirty-something puppets - living in an outer borough of New York City that quite intentionally resembles a very familiar neighborhood brought to you by the Children’s Television Workshop - who sing a variety of hilariously affecting songs about their desire to find purpose and love. Just watch Angel’s "Smile Time" episode and, of course, the beyond-famous Buffy musical "Once More With Feeling" (or the more recent Dr. Horrible) and you can definitely see why Joss would be such a great fit for a puppet musical with songs like "What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?" and "The Internet Is for Porn." Now don’t get us wrong. It’s not that we don’t want the original creators of Avenue Q to be involved in the movie adaptation (they HAVE to be involved), but, as we’ve seen with many of the lifeless stage-to-screen musicals of late (The Producers and Mamma Mia! come to mind), you can’t have a movie musical directed by people who only have experience working on stage. They’re two completely different mediums - even the most frenetic live-theatre staging can look dull and lifeless on film if the director doesn’t know anything about editing - and, fortunately, Joss has experience in both worlds. Have Joss ditch the visible puppeteers, film the whole thing like The Muppet Movie, and let puppet-fans of the world rejoice as Joss brings one of the funniest musicals of the past decade to your local multiplex.

2. Monster Island

One of the many great things about Buffy the Vampire Slayer is that it took one of the oldest, most cliched concepts in the history of horror - the under-valued damsel-in-distress trapped in an alley by an unseen fiend - and completely turned it on its ear. (The damsel then proceeds to turn around and knock the holy hell out of the unsuspecting fiend.) That’s one of the reasons why we think Joss would be a great choice to direct the film version of Monster Island by David Wellington, one of the most original, idea-packed zombie novels in recent memory. Monster Island began as a serialized blog novel (you can actually read the entire book, and its sequels, online for free here) and quickly became a cult hit. The plot follows Dekalb, a former UN weapons inspector who was in Africa when a zombie plague sweeps over the world. Fortunately for him, he’s able to find refuge for himself and his young daughter in the Free Women’s Republic of Somaliland, a new matriarchal country that was only too familiar with how to defend itself against genocide. Unfortunately for him, Dekalb and his daughter will only be allowed to stay in the safe Women’s Republic if he accompanies a group of sixteen-year-old girl soldiers on a suicide mission to the zombie-infested New York City to find AIDS medication for the Republic’s charismatic leader. If that wasn’t bad enough, there are stranger things than zombies waiting for Dekalb in Manhattan, including Gary, a medical student who found a way to survive zombie infection without losing his higher brain functions. It’s a weird, wild, and thrilling novel and fantastic material for Whedon’s sensibilities. Aside from Joss’ experience with unconventional horror concepts - we’re dying to know more about his in-production Cabin in the Woods - we can’t think of anyone better to bring to life the feminist strength of Dekalb’s girl-commando companions or Gary’s strange outsider perspective (Joss has been making stereotypical bad guys oddly humanistic for years, ranging from Spike to Dr. Horrible). We can’t imagine Joss tackling horror material as bland as the Saw movies or anything, but Monster Island might be the perfect vehicle for Joss to finally get his gore on.

3. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer

This is probably the least fantastic of all of our pitches - a nonfiction account of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln - and yet this is the idea that probably has the most potential to be a big, break-out blockbuster of a movie. So why should Joss tackle a film adaptation of James L. Swanson’s Manhunt as opposed to Spielberg, Oliver Stone, or someone else with more experience in the historical drama genre? First, Manhunt is not your normal history tome. Swanson’s account of the hunt for Booth reads like a thriller novel and completely immerses the reader in not just historical detail, but also the emotions, personalities, and drama surrounding the pursuit. Second, we know that Joss is well-read when it comes to the Civil War - he’s cited his reading of Michael Shaara’s Civil War book The Killer Angels as the inspiration for Firefly. Third, he’s pals with author and NPR correspondent Sarah Vowell, a tremendous writer who probably knows more about the Lincoln assassination than anyone born after 1960 (pick up her amazing book Assassination Vacation if you don’t believe us). And, fourth and finally, we’d simply love to see Joss work with material this historically rich and with so much potential to make a pulse-pounding pursuit flick. Swanson casts Booth as this swaggering, self-righteous villain who (through both cunning and luck) evades capture for twelve beyond-tense days, even with most of America’s law enforcement community hot on his trail. This could be a decent historical flick in almost any director’s hands, but we really think that Joss’ love for Civil War detail and three-dimensional characters could keep Manhunt from being just another tepid costume drama.

4. Soon I Will Be Invincible

This one is almost too easy. One could argue that a movie version of Austin Grossman’s novel Soon I Will Be Invincible could easily be retitled "Dr. Horrible... Only Without the Singing." But just because the match seems almost TOO natural, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a good idea. Soon I Will Be Invincible is like a teenage coming-of-age novel, narrated by the usual assortment of freaks and geeks, only set in the world of superheroes and super-villains. The diary-like novel is narrated by two residents of this super-world - first, Dr. Horrible... sorry, we mean, Dr. Impossible. He’s your average, introverted, grown-up high-school nerd, carrying around huge chips on his shoulder and a hatred for the popular kids. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, Doc Impossible is also a genius-level super-fiend who has a hard time letting go of his grudge against his nemesis, the annoyingly indestructible CoreFire. The other narrator is Fatale, a shy, self-conscious cyborg, who can’t remember her past and who finds herself breathless after being invited to join the world’s most powerful (and exclusive) super-group, the New Champions. Grossman does a clever job at blending all of the teenaged anxieties and self-doubt of John Hughes movie with the stereotypical conventions of the superhero genre - much in the same way that Joss did with Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. In fact, if you read Soon I Will Be Invincible after watching Dr. Horrible, it might be hard not to picture Neil Patrick Harris and Felicia Day in the roles of Impossible and Fatale. Plus Joss has proven with Astonishing X-Men and Runaways that few authors know how to write superheroes better. Sure, it’s an easy pitch, but that shouldn’t stop Joss from knocking it out of the park.

5. King Dork

If you haven’t read King Dork, the sublimely cool coming-of-age novel written by Frank Portman (a.k.a. Dr. Frank from the classic punk band The Mr. T Experience), do yourself a favor, put down the internet, and go pick up a copy. The story revolves around Tom Henderson, a 14-year-old outcast who spends his days either dodging abuse at high school or writing music and coming up with cool band names with his best pal Sam. But Tom delves into a whole new world when he finds a copy of Catcher in the Rye once owned by his father - who died under mysterious circumstances - and discovers a secret code that he sets out to break. The novel has the same stream-of-consciousness vibe as Salinger’s Catcher, but with a terrific undercurrent of mystery and adolescent snark. The main reason we want Joss to direct the King Dork movie is because Tom reminds us of Buffy’s Xander Harris, and we long for the season 2/season 3 version of Xander - back before he became a one-eyed watcher - when he was just an angry, sarcastic-as-hell teenager. Joss doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his sophisticated and authentic portrayal of teenagers in Buffy - just because they were fighting impossible creatures, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t emotionally honest - and we really want him to revisit the teenage experience, particularly in a vehicle as well-written as King Dork. As a bonus, the novel is swimming with ambiguity - there are no easy answers for Tom Henderson - which should only make Joss even more excited to enter King Dork’s kingdom.

Those are the projects that MovieRetriever wants to add to Joss Whedon’s upcoming "to-do" list. What do you think? Did we miss some obvious choices? Any suggestions for future lists - 5 Movies Martin Scorsese Should Direct? Spielberg, Jackson, Jonze?

Click on the link for more :

http://www.movieretriever.com