Entertainment Weekly has a great interview with Joss Whedon where he talks about everything from the Dr. Horrible sequel to Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s original title (Martha the Immortal Waitress) to smoking pot. But it’s what he has to say about comic book adaptations that caught my particular attention.
Whedon famously tried to get a Wonder Woman movie going several years back but didn’t get a heck of a lot of cooperation from DC. Since then NBC and the CW have both tried and failed to bring the superheroine to the small screen. Asked about the struggles of his compatriots, Whedon said:
“It is hard. She’s a tough nut to crack. I know she’s famous as a television show, but I don’t think she lends herself to television. I think she only works on an epic scale. I saw a bit of the David E. Kelley [NBC pilot]. That was not a good marriage.”
So first Wonder Woman is “tricky,” and now she’s “a tough nut to crack,” at least on TV. He is talking about the tone of her story, rather than the mere facts of her origin story, though.
And what about that movie he did make? Whedon’s been open about how he doesn’t think The Avengers is a “great film,” and here he explains why that is and how he plans to improve its sequel, Age of Ultron.
“When I think of a great film, I think of something that’s either structured so perfectly like The Matrix or made so lovingly like The Godfather Part II. There was haphazardness in the way it comes together—not just the people, but the scenes. I don’t think you’d look at it and go, ‘This is a model of perfect structure.’ You’d go, ‘This is working.’ I like it. I’m proud of it and I like its imperfections. The thing I cared most about—making a summer movie like the ones from my childhood—is the thing that I pulled off… [For Age of Ultron] I want to be clearer about how I engage the audience, and where I take them. I want more control visually, more time to prep it. Not that I didn’t dictate every shot—I did. But there’s only so much you can do when you’re making a summer film when the ball is already rolling as fast as it was when I got in. Why do it again if you can’t do it better?”
He has a point. For much of The Avengers the characters were just following in the wake of these plot points that were happening instead of actively making choices that affected the direction of the movie. It’s not a terrible thing, and integrating six heroes into one movie isn’t easy to pull off, structurally speaking, but, as Whedon points out, it could have been better. Hopefully, with the team dynamic already established, it will be in the sequel. And speaking of the sequel, why won’t Loki be in it, Joss?:
Every movie is going to be a different villain. Loki’s awesome, and he is awesome in Thor 2. But The Avengers is a different thing. I worked with Tom [Hiddleston] more than any other actor [in the last film], because he was the only villain and there were six heroes. And he was as great as anyone I’ve ever worked with, and I get why people loved the character. But it’s an Avengers movie.
Preach it. Loki’s great, but give the character a break lest fatigue set in.
So, what do you think? Do you agree with Whedon that Wonder Woman should be kept from the small screen? That The Avengers: Age of Ultron is best left Loki-less? Talk it out in the comments.
(Entertainment Weekly, via Screen Rant)
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