Joss Whedon is a busy guy, and he’s been one ever since his duties as writer and director of The Avengers meant that he’d need to take a pass on the script for Captain America: The First Avenger. With him accepting Avengers: Age of Ultron as well, it means he’s the guy to call to make sure your movie is contributing to the whole of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and apparently he’s also some kind of commando style fixer for scenes that aren’t working. Like the Wolf in Pulp Fiction, but for superhero movies.
Alan Taylor, director of Thor: The Dark World, recounted one such an occasion to SFX magazine:
“Joss came in to save our lives a couple of times,” laughs the director. “We had a major scene that was not working on the page at all in London, and he basically got airlifted in, like a SWAT team or something. He came down, rewrote the scene, and before he got back to his plane I sort of grabbed him and said, ‘And this scene and this scene?’ And he rewrote two other scenes that I thought had problems. Then finally we let go of him, he took off again, and we shot the scenes; and they were just much better and much lighter on their feet. Much more fun, much more surprising than what we had been trying to do. I can relate to guys who come out of the TV world, since that’s where I come from. And being able to land and work and solve a problem quickly… I really was grateful.”
Seriously, somebody recut Pulp Fiction to be about writing problems. Turn the whole “what does Marcellus Wallace look like” scene into a masterclass on Show Don’t Tell. I would watch that (no one else would watch that).
(SFX Magazine via Comic Book Movie.)
