Avengers: Joss Whedon!

[butterfly]

Reading articles about Joss talking about The Avengers makes me miss him as a writer and director all over again. So thoughtful!

“I got almost every actor a day or two before we started shooting, but I’ve been able to spend time with them while I’m writing and I think they knew I was building from the ground up. I went to every single one of them and said, ‘Here are my ideas and this is how I think you’ll be playing it. Is there something in particular you want to avoid? Something you feel the character needs or wants?’

“They all had input to the degree that they wanted it and it’s been a collaboration from the beginning. I think that helped set the tone right away. I knew exactly what I wanted when I started, but the actors knew that if they told me what they wanted, we could usually do both.”

Whedon also talked with “Iron Man” director Jon Favreau and “Thor” director Kenneth Branagh before he started production. “Jon walked me through his experience on ‘Iron Man’ and shared with me how he worked with Scarlett [Johansson] and Robert [Downey Jr.]. Ken called me to talk about Chris Hemsworth before he cast him in ‘Thor.’ Then I called him when he was shooting the film to ask him about Chris and Tom [Hiddleston] and how they were working out. His insights were wonderful. Both of them have been very helpful and generous.”

Whedon’s visual style for “Marvel’s The Avengers” is perfectly tailored for the project too. “As much as anything, my visual style as a director comes from comic books,” he says. “My understanding of visual storytelling comes from panel art, which I was reading more voraciously than I was watching movies for most of my childhood. In that sense, I had sort of a head start when I started visualizing this film. I hired Seamus McGarvey to be my Director of Photography because of ‘Atonement.’ It’s a gorgeous film. Seamus’ understanding of light as romantic and naturalistic is dazzling.

“Visually, the movie is similar to a lot of things that I do because it’s supposed to be casually iconic. In other words, I want to hit iconic moments without hitting people over the head with them. I want it to feel like a comic book without trying to look like one. I’m trying to ride that line between bigger-than-life characters and their bigger-than-life moments and the very human aspects of them.”

As for fans’ expectations—both his fans as a writer/director and Marvel comic book fans—Whedon has come to terms with them. “I feel respect for the fans, but you can’t let yourself feel the weight of how much they want or need from the project,” Whedon explains. “I really believe that you can die from fan expectations. There are two things that I can’t stand when I go to see a movie based on a comic book: being ignored and being pandered to. Fans are well aware when movies are doing either one. Ultimately, they’re going to see everything they ever hoped to see in ‘Marvel’s The Avengers,’ from every single one of these characters. There won’t be a hint of, ‘Well, we thought we ought to put this in to make the fans happy.’

“Honestly, if I felt the weight of how famous the actors in this movie are, or how big the budget is, or how high the fans’ expectations are, I’d be in my bed right now with the covers pulled up over my head. I did have one little minor freak out and my wife just said, ‘Honey, it’s just the next story.’ That helped.”

Whedon concludes, “I want to make a great Super Hero movie. I want to make a movie that has to have Super Heroes in it and makes it very clear that the world needs Super Heroes—especially this ridiculously motley, mismatched crew of Super Heroes. I want to make the kind of movie that inspires people to say, ‘There should be more movies with Super Heroes in them.’”

source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=785040&publicationSubCategoryId=70

Just! Ah! All the happiness, guys. All the freaking happiness.

And the DP from Atonement did this movie! Nice! Joss is right - that film was so beautiful.

I think that Joss is really good when working with genuine super heroes because it cuts through his cynicism and lets his more optimistic side through - not that he doesn't write the cynicism well, but I think that it can get overwhelming for people when it gets heavy. And this movie is also basically the creation of a found family (this is my informed guess), which is right in the Whedon wheelhouse, writing-wise.

I want the movie right now. Two more months! Ah!

I really want this movie to do really really well so that we get more Avengers movies.

Comments

[alchemise]

Wow, the way he talks about the movie, I'm now even more stupidly excited than I was before. :D