Tag: Joss Whedon

Avengers Assemble! Whedon’s Big Challenge

courtesy Empire Online

  The Avengers are featured on 4 covers of the latest issue of Empire Magazine, which includes an interview writer/director Joss Whedon.

  The fan favorite creator demonstrated how to take an existing story, make it accessible for new viewers and showcase a variety of favorite characters when he turned Firefly into Serenity. Whedon talks about the challenge of penning a story servicing each characters’ existing storylines and future solo ventures:

courtesy Empire Online

  “It was an up-all-month job. Finding the characters’ voices was not only easy, but glorious fun – it doesn’t suck to write Tony Stark – yet finding the structure was just brutal. I haven’t had that much trouble making a screenplay work since Serenity, and embarrassingly, for the exact same reason: there’s just too many characters.”

 

  Whedon is now in the critical post-production stage to meet his May deadline. Here’s his mental state:

courtesy Empire Online

  “It’s like a sea. I can’t see either shore. I’m pretty sure I will drown. Don’t even call me Ishamael. The experience doesn’t feel any different from when I was running three TV shows and my son was born. Really the same. Not so huge. As far as the press goes, they don’t put it on me,” reflects Whedon. He pauses. “And I don’t feel it. It ain’t my money. I don’t care!”

  For more interview highlights visit Comic Book Movie.

Captain America is Center of The Avengers Movie

Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America in The Avengers courtesy Marvel.com

  The Avengers Assemble under Joss Whedon. The stars were all signed up. The fans are excited. The director talks about the real challenge in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly and how he solved it.

“I set out with a very simple problem: There is no reason for these people to be in the same movie. So that’s what my movie has to be about.”

Whedon says Steve Rogers’ awakening in modern times from Captain America: The First Avenger sets the stage for this movie and serves as the audience’s path into the story.

“So much of the movie takes place from Steve Rogers’ perspective, since he’s the guy who just woke up and sees this weird-ass world,” Whedon says. “Everyone else has been living in it.”

  Although Tony Stark’s ego may not approve I think this is a great choice.  I’m looking forward to seeing Cap’s ‘innocence’ and ‘wholesomeness’ interact and inspire Stark, Clint and Thor. Imagine Cap’s reaction when she first sees Black Widow!

  See the heroes recruited by SHIELD to save the world from Loki from Thor (and his unrevealed secret army) on May 4th.

For more of the article and the 2012 movie preview visit EWOnline.

Mark Ruffalo Calls Avengers “An Allegory”

 

Courtesy Marvel Films

The Avengers is more than a big budget action spectacle. It’s deep. If you don’t agree – take it up the Hulk!

  Mark Ruffalo who plays Bruce Banner/Hulk likens the assembling of Marvel’s mightiest heroes to an allegory about the American experience.

“You have all these disparate egos, superheroes in this and that, and they refuse to give up some of their positions in order to make a more perfect union and to join the team,” star Mark Ruffalo tells The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog. “That’s really what the whole movie is about: subjugating your own best interest momentarily to further that of the whole.”

As Ruffalo sees it, the film’s message speaks to the times. “I didn’t know it a year ago that it was going to speak to so many of the issues we’re having here in the United States and throughout the world, the same kind of theme,” he says. The actor was active in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

With Joss Whedon at the helm I expect an emotional whallop along with shields, hammers and pulse beams pounding at the big bad. The Avengers opens May 4th.

 Spinoff Online captured Ruffalo’s interview from The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy Blog.

The Avengers Assemble in 3D

Avengers banner courtesy Marvel.com

  You will get to experience the action of Captain America’s shield, Thor’s hammer or maybe Iron Man blasting off the screen at you in this summer’s assembling of Marvel’s mightiest heroes. The Avengers will have a 3D theatrical run according to The Hollywood Reporter: Heat Vision.

“It’s an action movie. Things tend to hurdle toward the screen anyway,” Director Joss Whedon said adding that the 3D “won’t be obnoxious” according to JoeBlo.

Star Wars and Serenity United!

Mal Reynolds from this year's Serenity-Star Wars Free Comic Book Day flipbook courtesy Dark Horse Comics

  One of my most anticipated books for Free Comic Book Day 2012 is the  Star Wars/Serenity flipbook from Dark Horse Comics. The publisher will delight two fan universes with one comic book.

 The Star Wars story will star Han Solo and Chewbacca. Serenity will feature Captain Mal Reynolds. New art and an interview with writer Zach Whedon (his brother Joss created the Firefly/Serenity universe) is on today’s Comic Book Resources.

  You might think Han and Mal might find a lot on common – if they weren’t competing for the same smuggling job but Whedon doesn’t see Reynolds and Solo getting along.

Star Wars Free Comic Book Day 2012 Cover courtesy Dark Horse Comics

    “I think if they could get past their initial misgivings – Mal with Han’s shifty, smooth-talking nature. Han with Mal’s stoic solider routine – they’d have a lot to talk about. But I think it’s more likely they’d butt heads, possibly literally,” said Whedon.

  For more of my picks for Free Comic Book Day 2012 click here.

 

Buffy Deluxe!

What if Buffy the Vampire Slayer series never ended? Joss Whedon brought the Scooby Gang back an in comics only follow up to Season 7 from Dark Horse Comics. Now Season 8 is collected in a deluxe hardcover collection Dark Horse announced today.

  Buffy, Xander, Willow and a very different Dawn regroup with an army of Slayers after the Season 7 finale. Dracula returns, Buffy does more than kiss a girl and the rebellious Faith teams up with Giles for their own mission. The series is filled with new and old enemies in adventures around the globe all leading up to a confrontation with this season’s big bad: Twilight.

  One of my favorite arcs is Wolves at the Gate. To defeat vicious new vampires in Tokyo, Xander is forced to seek out the legendary master in Transylvania. This new hardcover edition has all the arcs, one-shots, a cover gallery and never before seen sketch art.