Joss Whedon

12 - Joss Whedon

POPULARITY: Wrote and directed The Avengers, the third-biggest film of all time ($600 million domestically, $1.5 billion worldwide); created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of the defining TV shows of the nineties, and its subsequent cross-medium Buffyverse; wrote and directed Emmy-winning web musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS: 93,000 on an unofficial fan page.

TWITTER FOLLOWERS: Whedon don’t tweet.

FAN NICKNAME: Whedonites; a smaller subset of Firefly fans call themselves Browncoats.

MAIN HANGOUTS: Whedonesque.com is the one-stop shop — and the man himself will take to the site when he wants to communicate directly to the faithful.

AVERAGE DEMOGRAPHIC: Smart, literary; also likes things that explode. Probably more female than male, given the unwavering strain of girl-power at the heart of Whedon’s work; most of his output subverts the standard sci-fi/horror view of female characters as damsels in distress. The Avengers has brought more men and comic-book fan boys into his fold.

DEVOTIONAL PROFILE: Is there still a cult of Joss Whedon if everybody belongs to it now? Whedonites are used to fighting the good fight for TV series that either barely get renewed (like Buffy, Angel, and Dollhouse) or get snuffed out after one short season (Firefly), but this year, after The Avengers blew up, he was quickly locked up not just for its sequel, but also for a consulting gig on multiple Marvel movies. And just like that, what had previously been a niche fan base — albeit a passionate, wide-ranging one that supported Whedon-penned Buffy comics and created college courses dedicated to his brand of pop feminism — had become part of the mainstream.

But it wasn’t Jossy-come-lately Marvel fans who flocked to the Toronto Film Festival this year for the premiere of his new filmed adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. These were the hard-core Whedonites who cheered at the appearance of Whedon regulars like Amy Acker and Tom Lenk like they’d been presented with Jennifer Lawrence and Seth Rogen. They’re the reason this project, which Whedon initially conceived with a potential online release in mind, snagged a lucrative Lionsgate theatrical deal. Whedon fans are used to giving the man that extra oomph, whether it’s agitating for the release of his long-shelved Cabin in the Woods or pushing so hard for a Firefly movie that Universal actually made one, despite how badly the space-western did on television.