|
Post by Sara on Jun 16, 2006 11:58:51 GMT -5
There's a lengthy interview with Joss on Wizard Universe, ranging from his work in the X-Men universe to his upcoming Wonder Woman to, of course, the Buffy and Firefly 'verses. Good stuff.
|
|
|
Post by Karen on Aug 2, 2006 21:36:25 GMT -5
An exerpt below from Joss/John Cassaday podcast interview from San Diego Comic Con. Buffy comic: Joss is writing a four-issue arc that tails off into something longer, overseeing writers from the show and writers from comics who want to come in, taking four issues at a pop, for an overarching story that he's figured out. "Season 8", the story of her life after the end of the TV show, she's changed the world literally and she has to deal with what comes next.And from Joss himself: "I would love to do TV. I miss it very much." Lots of goodies throughout the 25 minute interview. Including the juicy tidbit that *highlight to read spoiler Heath Ledger * is going to play The Joker in the next Batman movie. Not sure if that's a 'joke' or not. Who knows with Joss? Joss also comments that he has ian dea for a television show, but that he has to finish WW, the Buffy comic, Goners and X-men first. Sounds like it'll be a few years before he pitches his idea to the networks. Something to look forward to.
|
|
|
Post by Sara on Dec 7, 2006 9:37:51 GMT -5
From TV Guide:
Thursday, December 7, 2006 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Is Back: The Complete Joss Whedon Q&A by Ileane Rudolph
Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan alert — the Scooby Gang lives! If you've been waiting since 2003 for the answer to little sister Dawn's series-ending question ("What are we gonna do now?"), it's finally on its way. Creator Joss Whedon is preparing Buffy: Season 8, but this time around the adventures are in comic-book form, arriving in March 2007 from Dark Horse Comics. We talked to Whedon about Buffy, today's TV and his many other projects.
TVGuide.com: Why did you decide to do an entire eighth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a comic-book series? Joss Whedon: Well, I'm not that bright. I keep thinking that I have all this free time that I don't have. It started going in my brain — "Wouldn't it be fun if... " and, "You could... " while the other voice was saying, "It's death. I'm out of control. I'm already writing." So I basically said, "We could do something and for once we could make it canon. We could make it officially what happened after the end of the show." Let Buffy not only address certain themes that slipped between the cracks of the show, but also really be a comic book. Take the template of the show, but not so religiously that they're all standing in the Magic Box, talking, for 10 pages.
TVGuide.com: Did you have a concept for the eighth season already mapped out in your head after the sort of sudden cancellation of the series? Or did it come about after the nixing of the much talked-about spin-off movies? Whedon: The show was not canceled suddenly — I knew that the show would not go past seven years, that I could not go past seven years. I had originally intended to go only five, but once it was clear that we were going to do more than five, both Sarah [Michelle Gellar] and I, and all the other actors, knew that seven was it. But the idea of doing movies about some of the ancillary characters got me really excited, because I love those actors and I love that world. That kind of fell through, but when I started working on the comic... I sketched out this sort of broad arc that would connect everything. Now it will probably only appear on the comic-book pages, but it will be really well drawn. George Jeanty (The American Way) is the artist.
TVGuide.com: How many issues will there be? And how many are you writing? Whedon: The season should run between 20 and 30 issues, I'm guessing. It has, like the [TV] seasons did, an overriding story with an ending point. I'll be writing the beginning, the first four, the last four, and I'll definitely be doing some others. I have a bunch of other writers — comic-book heavies and former writers from the show — who are going to write the other issues. I'll be overseeing the whole thing, and they've all got my giant mission statement about what the giant arc is about.
TVGuide.com: What is the giant arc about? Whedon: I'm not going to tell you that. But I can tell you that it's about the ramifications of everything that happened in Season 7. At the end of the show, Buffy made every girl who might be a potential vampire slayer into a fully realized slayer with all the remembered history and powers, so she's made a big change in the way the world works. The comic will be dealing with that when we pick up the story several months later.
TVGuide.com: So there's an army of slayers... going up against whom? Who or what are the main bad guys? Whedon: There are, not surprisingly, monsters, because that's what they generally fight, but what we found out early on in the show is that the scariest thing in the world is other people. But at the same time, it is a comic book and it has to step up in terms of kind of being epic.
TVGuide.com: What's the main thing you can do with a comic that you couldn't do on a network TV show? Whedon: Well, the thing we couldn't do on my network TV show — you can do a lot on a show these days, if you have money — is really go anywhere, and let the visuals complement the storytelling in a very specific way. [In comic books] you have the whole world, the whole universe, at your disposal. We really didn't have a lot of money to make Buffy.
TVGuide.com: You couldn't tell. Whedon: Well, bless you. We worked really hard to make it look like we did. But there were a few times when she'd walk into a cave, and it'd have a perfectly flat concrete floor. I'd just go, "Oh, if only this were a comic book." [Laughs] You still want to have people identify with the characters, but with a comic, you have a mandate that you have to do it a little bit bigger. Buffy's just living on a bigger scale. She's not the everyman that she was, but she's still cute and quippy.
TVGuide.com: Does she get comic-book superheroine breast implants? Whedon: She really doesn't. I've been fortunate that I've never worked with a T&A artist. I'm very specific about that.
TVGuide.com: Isn't that the raison d'etre of lots of comics? Whedon: That's part of why I stopped reading comics for a while. All the people I work with draw actual women.
TVGuide.com: Are most of the TV characters featured in the comic? Whedon: I bring them in slowly. The first one features Buffy and a couple of other characters. In the first four, we basically get the layout of where most of them are. I'm bringing them as a fugue, one by one, to play their part. I'm also leaving some people out deliberately, or mentioning them without focusing on them, so that the other writers who come in can have something new to play with. Instead of just picking up my story, they get to pick up whatever aspect of it interests them.
TVGuide.com: Is Anya still dead? Whedon: Anya, still dead. That doesn't mean she won't show up, and it doesn't mean she will. Dead in the Buffyverse is a very singular concept.
TVGuide.com: And Spike? Everyone wants Spike. Whedon: I do have plans for Spike, but the Angel franchise to which Spike defected is in fact owned by another comic-book company, so all that has to be worked out.... And is indeed being worked out.
TVGuide.com: Does that mean there will or won't be Angel crossovers? Whedon: There will be a certain amount. The Angel characters were in the Buffyverse and could appear. I'm not going to feature them heavily because that other company is working on them, and I just don't want to be a schmo to them.
TVGuide.com: Isn't that a little weird? Whedon: It's a little weird. It's not an ideal situation, but I would not heavily use those characters. There's a reason you have Angel do his own show, because you can only play out the variations of "What if Romeo and Juliet lived?" for so long. He's in her heart, but he will be used sparingly.
TVGuide.com: Will you introduce new characters? Whedon: Oh, there'll be a bunch. There'll be some old faces, 'cause that's always fun, and we'll have a whole bunch of these slayers. And there will be new villains. New faces are easier for the artists to draw.
TVGuide.com: How frequently will the issues arrive, because some comics aren't very punctual in their delivery, let's say. Whedon: I'm trying very hard to keep to a monthly schedule. I've got a lot of different writers who are going to be coming in and I don't know how many artists and writers we'll be using, and that will determine it. But the idea is to keep it monthly and not to do what's being done so often — and has been done by my very own self.
TVGuide.com: With your much-delayed comic, Fray? Whedon: There was an issue of Fray that was about a year late. I'm never going to live that one down.
TVGuide.com: This Buffy series could run for more than two years, couldn't it? Whedon: Yes, I figure it [can] be between 25 and 30 issues for this season, as it were. And that could run for a couple of years.
TVGuide.com: What's happening with Astonishing X-Men? Whedon: I have one more run of Astonishing X-Men, about 10 more issues. I'm already writing it because Marvel keeps changing the schedule. I don't know when it's coming out, but I keep writing them and Johnny keeps drawing them, so it should be coming out regularly even if it's bimonthly, which I hope it's not. I hope we get to go a little faster than that.
TVGuide.com: You've talked a little about the X-Men content to reporters. Why not Buffy? Whedon: Well, the thing is, X-Men is continuing right where everybody knows we are, whereas Buffy, we sort of closed it down, and are now picking it up several months later, so it's been a while since anyone saw her. We want to get that feeling of reintroducing ourselves. "Where is everybody? How do they feel? What are they doing? What the hell happened to Dawn?"
TVGuide.com: Isn't it "Buffy and her gang saving the world"? Whedon: Generally speaking, we hope they save it instead of doing the other thing. Because otherwise, we're fired.
TVGuide.com: What's happening with the eagerly anticipated Wonder Woman movie? Whedon: Rewriting, nothing else. Writing, writing, writing.
TVGuide.com: No time period to start casting yet? Whedon: There is not.
TVGuide.com: Any other TV plans? Or did the shabby treatment of Firefly do it for you? Whedon: Firefly wounded me really badly, but I love, love, love TV. It's just a question of freeing up time. I have a few commitments, Wonder Woman being the biggest. I can't let any of them slide, so I've got to get through the things I already agreed to do before I can start agreeing to do other things. But I miss TV. I'm not going to lie: I love it.
TVGuide.com: Is the idea of sequels to Serenity completely dead? Whedon: Nobody's asked me for anything more. They all know that I'm there, and that it's not something I would ever turn my back on. But they do have to ask. I don't have all that money.
TVGuide.com: Have you seen the Battlestar Galactica comic? Whedon: No, I don't think I can do it. I love Battlestar too hard. I couldn't look at any ancillary work.
TVGuide.com: I love Buffy "hard," so are you saying we fans shouldn't read the comic? Whedon: No, because if they stopped doing Battlestar Galactica, and then two or three years later Ron Moore and David Eick said, "We ourselves are going to continue the story in comic-book form — as opposed to something ancillary to the show done by other people," then I would be all over it. People used to say, "Will you make a Buffy movie like The X-Files did?" I was like never, because while the show is going on, the show is my only priority. That's not to say the Battlestar comic isn't great, but I love that show the way other people love Buffy. I love it unreasonably. [Laughs] It feels wrong.
TVGuide.com: Is Battlestar your favorite current TV show? Whedon: Yes, that is my favorite show. Maybe ever.
TVGuide.com: That's saying something. Do David and Ron know that? Whedon: I think I drooled on Ron at a dinner party once. I don't think he was thrilled.
TVGuide.com: What is your favorite comic right now? Whedon: There are a lot of comics I like a lot. I'm a huge fan of Planetary. I love the Lunar Brothers' Girls. It's like watching a movie. I haven't read a comic like that since I can remember. It's really intense. I love Next Wave, The Ultimates. I'm pretty straightforward. Mostly it's guys in suits.
TVGuide.com: Did you know that there's a new Sci Fi channel series based on the Painkiller Jane comic? Whedon: Oh, I'm not surprised she showed up.
TVGuide.com: Any last word on the Buffy comic? Whedon: I should probably say that it's the awesomest thing ever. I'm having so much fun.
|
|
|
Post by Spaced Out Looney on Dec 7, 2006 11:07:06 GMT -5
Squee! Joss loves Battlestar Galactica. Awesome.
|
|
|
Post by Karen on Feb 25, 2007 0:44:26 GMT -5
Joss MTV InterviewSlightly spoilery for Buffy Season 8 comics. Lots of insights into what he had planned for the Wonder Woman movie that he's no longer involved with. There are about 5 videos.
|
|
|
Post by Sara on Apr 25, 2007 9:11:31 GMT -5
WONDER MAN By Paul Florez Posted April 23, 2007 1:15 PM
In March 2005, when Warner Bros. Pictures announced Joss Whedon was going to write and direct a live-action Wonder Woman movie, fans went into a tizzy. The Internet lit up with casting rumors as everyone from Charisma Carpenter to Kate Beckinsale to Sophia Bush was linked to play the Amazon heroine. Whedon—who had already cemented his geek cred by creating the TV shows “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel” and “Firefly” and for writing the hit Marvel comics, Astonishing X-Men and now, Runaways—was deified practically overnight.
But then a year passed. Eighteen months. Why hadn’t production started? In early February 2007, nearly two years since he was first announced on the project, Whedon proclaimed he was stepping down due to creative differences. It was a devastating setback not only for him, but also for those who were looking forward to seeing his interpretation of Wonder Woman on the big screen.
So aside from his comics work (which includes a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer series for Dark Horse, which is essentially the show’s eighth season in comic book form), what’s next for Whedon in the world of TV and movies? Wizard sat down with the 42-year-old creative genius to talk about his next film, what the outlook for his return to TV is and to address a pesky rumor about a certain band of merry mutants.
WIZARD: There’s a rumor swirling that you’re going to write and direct an “X-Men 4” movie. Care to comment?
WHEDON: I haven’t heard the rumor, but there is no rumor that is not swirling. I don’t even know, are they even going to have an “X4”? I had been talking with [Marvel Studios] about “X3,” but the dates didn’t line up. So I took on “Wonder Woman,” and that worked out great! Oh, no wait, I remember now, not so much.
Yeah, I haven’t heard anything about “X4.” You know, the problem with the big superhero movies is there are so many hands [involved], but I really respect [Marvel Studios President of Production] Kevin Feige if they make something like that. You know they’re actually going to make it as opposed to something that’s in limbo. And you know I do love the characters. I wouldn’t say never. But right now, I’m interested in doing “Goners,” which is my own thing, as opposed to somebody else’s. I find that doing someone else’s thing is not working out so well for me—anywhere but in the word of actual comics. With “Wonder Woman,” was it hard because Warner Bros. interfered with your vision?
Nobody interfered with my vision because literally, nobody ever said, “No, no. We want it this way.” I told them what was I going to do, they said do it, I did it, they said no. I said okay.
How’d you react?
I could feel the end for a long while. I could tell they weren’t enthused and you know our conversations were never about what the movie was about, the very few that we had. And so I just felt like, if they know what I’m going for, they don’t like it, and they may not even know, and they’ve told me they don’t even know what they are going for, just that I’m not giving it to them, so it wasn’t like they were interfering. They gave me all the freedom in the world, all the rope in the world in which to build my noose.
So, are you going to be able to see the movie when it’s been written and directed by someone else?
I have absolutely no idea, you know? I mean, it’s hard for me. I’ll tell you the honest truth, it’s just as hard for me with Batman. I never wrote any Batman [comics], but I did go in to pitch [the movie]. I still stay up late at night thinking how cool my Batman movie could have been, and I liked “Batman Begins” a lot. I thought it had some awesome stuff I would never have come up with, but I still think about what I could have done. That’s the problem when you throw your heart into those things; it just stays there.
And so, it would be hard for me to see, but if it’s a good movie, made by someone I respect, my own ego isn’t keeping me away from it.
Okay, so with the announcement that David Goyer has stepped down from writing and directing “The Flash” movie…
Yeah, I know, on the same day.
Do you know why?
I don’t know what David was doing [with “The Flash”], why [Warner Bros.] didn’t like what David was doing [and I] still don’t know why they didn’t like what I was doing [with “Wonder Woman”].
Why do you think development of DC films doesn’t flow as smoothly as development of Marvel movies?
Marvel has hit their stride. They’ve had some success. And they built the first printing press—they made the template. They made “Spider-Man,” which is truly the first, great comic book adaptation and taught everybody else how they should be doing it. Oh, stay true to the comics? That’s interesting.
Marvel Comics right now is a company with the X-Men and Spider-Man, so they’ve got juice. And they’re in a rhythm. But also, the characters were made as a reaction to the DC characters.
Batman will always have a huge resonance. With Wonder Woman, you have to create [the resonance], and quite frankly, with Superman, you kind of have to create it, too. Superman’s not a young guy, and no matter who you cast, he is not a young person. That’s not who he is, so it’s a different story and it’s harder to get juiced [more ] than this patented angst at Marvel, which basically gets a response [more than] the stodgier, grown-up DC world. I think that has to do with it. Marvel’s characters really do lend themselves to adolescent identification in a way the DC characters have to reach for. So will your version of Wonder Woman ever appear in a comic book?
No. That’s owned by the movie division and it’s a movie. Comics and movies are different and I’m not interested in adapting a story I wrote for something else unless there is a very good reason to enter a new medium. If I had never tried my hand at a Wonder Woman movie, I might have tried my hand at a Wonder Woman comic, but I think the Amazon and I are still going to see other people.
And now you’re writing and directing a new movie called “Goners” for Universal, right? What’s that project?
“Goners” is a supernatural thriller I wrote after “Serenity” and is being produced by Mary Parent.
What’s the status of it?
I’m doing a rewrite [of the script], which for a long time eluded me mostly because I was working on “Wonder Woman,” but perhaps not coincidentally, as things began to go south with “Wonder Woman,” corners began to unfold and what I needed to do became very clear, so I’m working on that right now. [So I’m working] on a draft I feel will be ready to give to the studio for, hopefully, a light of greenishness.
What about TV? You recently guest directed an episode of NBC’s “The Office.” Would you like to go back to television?
I love TV, I absolutely want to go back to TV. You know, if I have a series I believe in and I have the people to make it and a place to put it, yes. I adore television but a lot of things have to come together and while I have these other obligations, I can’t really pursue those things. I also just don’t want to get trampled on. So I’m a little skittish…
What do you mean, “trampled on”?
“Trampled on” as in having someone cancelling out from under you two things in one year. When a story doesn’t get finished being told, or you’re the victim of wrong-headed business decisions that nobody even seems to be losing sleep over, you really don’t want to walk in that world anymore. So, I’m not interested in telling stories that nobody is going to see. I don’t feel like making a pilot and seeing if it goes. I feel like if I make something, it has to have a venue. Whether that is a low-budget movie, a DVD or TV with commitment to DVD, whatever it is, I can’t tell the stories nobody hears anymore. I’ve done that in my life. So do you have any ideas for a new TV show now?
I have ideas all the time.
Care to share?
I never tell anyone my ideas.
Let’s switch gears. Do you watch the new “Battlestar Galactica” series on the SCI FI Channel?
I love it.
Would you like to direct an episode?
You know, yes and no. In a way, I would like to see behind the curtain. I adore the way they tell stories, and I just soak it up. My favorite thing to do is sit with my wife and watch “Battlestar,” but I directed “The Office” and that turned out to be so much fun. You know, to be a director for hire and to walk in someone else’s house is not an easy thing to do.
What do you mean?
Everybody knows what they’re doing, and who are you to tell them how to do it? If they don’t want to be collaborative then you’re just sitting around. In “The Office,” they couldn’t be more nicer or collaborative or more interested in working hard and getting it done, and to a man, it was a great experience, but that’s not always the case. And even then, I’m basically servicing [executive producer] Greg Daniels’ vision, which is fun to do, but it’s not actually part of my career. That’s really me just taking a vacation, a really tiring vacation.
Who do you think is the hottest actress on “Battlestar”?
Ouch! The hottest? I don’t even think I could…whoever is on screen is my answer. Starbuck [Katee Sackhoff] is so fascinating, Sharon [Grace Park] is so beautiful and tortured, but I think I’m going to have to give it up for President Roslin [Mary McDonnell]. She holds the screen with the iron grip. I find her absolutely fascinating.
So Roslin is your favorite…
Ah, you know, what day is it? She might be. If you put a gun to my head and I had to choose, she just might be. But my God, that’s a tough one.
|
|
|
Post by Karen on May 20, 2007 20:08:07 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Karen on Aug 5, 2007 19:55:57 GMT -5
www.ropeofsilicon.com/news.php?id=6846While at Comic Con RopeofSilicon was one of the lucky few to get a 1:1 sit down with writer/director Joss Whedon. Of course since Serenity's unexplicable dissapointment at the box-office things haven't gone so well for Joss, but he was more than willing to talk about such things as Serenity and the upcoming special edition DVD release, Wonder Woman and his future. So after all is said and done, was Serenity profitable? Do you consider it a success? Joss Whedon (JW): It's a success to the studio or else we wouldn't be doing a special edition DVD. They actually admitted as much on paper, which you know studios are loathe to do, and that was actually from the theatrical. Theatrical was a disappointment, as everyone knows, but it did go into the black. Then the DVD came and they took me aside and said "We can't keep these things on the shelf. We want to do a special edition." And I didn't want to hear that because I knew it would have to be a truly special edition to make me happy. There had to be a real reason, some real goodies. So what will the special edition have for us? JW: We took some stuff from the region two version; the making of – a really beautiful one that's a bit longer. It has the first read through for the movie with the cast, two years after the show ended. And it has the River Tam sessions, the stuff I did on the internet with Summer. We got to do another commentary too, Nathan, Summer, Ron and Adam – I made sure it didn't go the same direction as the first commentary. It feels like this version will be something more for the people who would tend to buy both. And they expect to sell around a kajillion copies? JW: I believe it's around eleventy kabillion. Article is continued in the link.
|
|
|
Post by Michelle on Aug 6, 2007 14:43:17 GMT -5
www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20049318,00.html Whedon After 'Wonder'-land''I couldn't stand the idea of one more person asking me who was going to play Wonder Woman,'' says director Joss Whedon, explaining why he — a perennial Comic-Con favorite — didn't pop up on a panel in 2006. Now unlassoed from said movie project, Whedon last week returned to speak at the Nerd Prom, unleashing a spate of projects — a number of them Buffy-related — to orgiastic effect. Among the crowd-pleasers: Ripper, a 90-minute TV movie for the BBC about Buffy's watcher, Giles; Goners, his original movie for Universal that's still in development and presently in rewrites; Cabin in the Woods, a horror movie coscripted with Drew Goddard (Cloverfield) that he's shopping around; and two comics, a Buffy ''season 9'' story arc and a Serenity miniseries. As Comic-Con wound down, Whedon sat down with EW to elaborate on his breakup with Wonder Woman, his larger designs for the Buffyverse, and how Comic-Con helps him forget about his day job. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You mentioned during your panel that it's been a rough couple of years. Are you speaking, in particular, of your aborted Wonder Woman movie?JOSS WHEDON: I in no way want this to be a slam on Warner Bros., but the fact of the matter is, it was a waste of my time. We never [wanted] to make the same movie; none of us knew that. And it was a waste of their time because I had a lot of trouble writing — not just writing that, but writing at all. Part of it had to do with having just finished Serenity. I ran into James Gunn, who'd just done his first film, Slither. And he was like, ''The director in me killed the writer in me.'' And we fell on each other. It was like finding a support group. After you direct and edit something, you just realize everything is negotiable. The line that you died for, you pull without hesitation because [the script] seems a little long. He was like, ''Every time I sit down to write I think, Is this even going to make it in?'' And you can't write like that. Joel Silver bought another Wonder Woman script while you were still on the project. Did you see that coming?I was warned by a friend that it was happening. And I was already well aware that people were not liking what I was doing. So I don't feel like I was blindsided. I sent them an outline for a new draft that I felt was exactly what I wanted, and they didn't want to do it. Joel told me that. And I was like, ''Can you tell me what they want? Can you tell me what they don't like?'' The answer was ''No.'' Then I was like, ''Okay, but I'm certainly not going to start from scratch.'' There were rumors that your other film project, Goners, may have been distracting you.Not while I was doing Wonder Woman. And [Warner Bros.] knew that. I sold Goners to Universal with the understanding that Wonder Woman was happening [first]. If Goners had completely unveiled itself in a perfect structure and the way it needed to be, I would have sat down and written it and maybe it would've gone first. But I really kept Goners at bay because of Wonder Woman. There's also a lot of...there's personal stuff that I'm not interested in talking about that was difficult. And then there's also wonderful stuff that was difficult, which was my children. I had to create a system whereby I could get a full day's work [done] and still be the father that I want to be. So why throw yourself into Buffy comics?I miss television. I miss the quick turnaround. Get it done, get it out, every month or every week. Movies move glacially, and that's really frustrating.... A lot of my forward looking involves looking back. Because I do still love the universes I created and the people that I worked with. Lost writer Brian K. Vaughn will take over writing the Buffy comic this fall...Then it'll be Drew Goddard, [novelist/Jack & Bobby creator] Brad Meltzer...I'm actually working out the ''season,'' as we call it. But it's delightful for me to work on. The idea was always bringing in different writers, people who've either been on our show or powerhouses in comic books. I'm giving everybody an arc to do — or in some cases a one-shot if they didn't have the time. I've already mapped out the entire 40-issue ''season.'' Where is the story going to go?It's been indicated that there are people who are trying to get rid of the slayers because they represent the same kind of magic as the demons. So I'm putting the slayers in the global spotlight for a little bit — really getting to talk about shifts in power and trying to put an end to magic. That's what Buffy's fighting against. It's an epic story. I've asked Brad to plot out the last 10 issues with me and then write the first half, and I'll write the second half. But I'm overseeing every script, every story, every page. And what about Ripper — is that going to hit BBC America?It's BBC , in England. It's still being worked out. The character is still part of the Buffy franchise that Fox owns. We want to make sure that everybody gets respected. And everything is contingent on the script. I have an outline, but I don't have a script yet.
Anthony Stewart Head (who plays Giles) is willing to wait? Yeah, Tony and I had dinner and he's like, ''Oh yeah, I hate this idea!'' I pitched him the story — he's heard some of it before. But a story point [finally] fell into place. For years, I hadn't been able to figure it out. Let's just say something very bad is happening, and I couldn't figure out why.
So, careerwise, do you feel like things are finally falling into place again? Honestly, this is a transitional stage in my career. Last year I didn't do a panel because I had nothing to talk about. I went from running three shows [Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly] to making a movie [Serenity] to kind of coming to a screeching halt in terms of what I was putting out to the public — except for comic books. And I'm doing a lot of assessing: ''What exactly am I looking for?''
Then why bother showing up here? This year I spoke because I do have things going on, and I felt like the fans had been very patient. The trick is not just go, ''Well, I did Buffy, so I am just going to go there and get some fame juice.'' You don't want to be that guy who's like, [In a desperate voice] ''Hey! You want your picture taken with me? I'm that guy who did Buffy. Remember?'' You suddenly start to feel like Sam Rockwell in Galaxy Quest. [But regardless] I'll be showing up for the reason I showed up last year — I said I didn't do a panel, I didn't say I didn't come. It's Comic-Con! This is Christmas for me. And I like to look at the pulp art, I like to look at the costumes, I like to look at everything....
Sam Raimi told us he wore a zombie mask so that he could walk around the floor unrecognized. I like that. Did it work? I talked to Seth Green and Seth was like, ''Don't wear a disguise. It won't help. Even if you're dressed as Spider-Man, they'll still know it's you. Trust me.'' People do say, ''Hi, can I take a picture?'' or something. But it isn't like I'm this rock star.
Who do you think benefits most from this sort of cross-pollination of fanboys and Hollywood at Comic-Con? Um...me! As a fan. Just because there's stuff to do, stuff to look at. Ultimately everybody who's trying to benefit was working at the Con. And every now and then I'll see an agent on the phone being all grousy standing next to a Boba Fett. And I'll be like, ''Dude, check out the Fett! You're missing the point.''
|
|
|
Post by Sara on Aug 9, 2007 9:16:48 GMT -5
The Onion's AV Club recently interviewed Joss; you can read the resulting article here.
|
|
|
Post by leftylady on Oct 30, 2007 17:55:22 GMT -5
Interview with Joss at tvguide.com editors blog about the full AtS dvd set:
"Must Be Talking to an Angel? Even Better, It's Joss Whedon!
Awww, yeah. It’s finally here! Right in time for Halloween, one of TV’s best vampire series ever is sinking its fangs into the shelves with Angel: The Complete Collector’s Set. It’s like a David Boreanaz bender! And just like I promised, here’s some supernifty insight from series creator, executive producer and master of the Whedonverse, Joss Whedon, about our favorite soulful bloodsucker. (Yeah, I have the coolest job in the world. I know.)
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk. I know you have a lot going on. Hey, it’s my pleasure.
So Angel the Complete Series…this is a big deal! It is for me, just because I actually use my complete Buffy series all the time. [Laughs]
Yeah, right? I think a lot of people do! Is there anything new included with this collection that’s not in the individual-season sets? Um, well there isn’t anything that I got to do with this set that I didn’t get to do with the series itself, because this is the series itself.
No extras or anything? Nah. You know, when they did the Buffy set, they did this sort of round-table discussion… but they didn’t do that with the Angel set. I think they didn’t really come to it 'til so far down the line that everybody had scattered. They’d disappeared into Bones. [Laughs] So it really is just the series, but because so many people are just discovering Buffy now on DVD, this is a great thing to have. And the series gets so entwined in itself that it’s really nice to have it all in one place.
That’s a shame. I so enjoy useless deleted scenes. [Laughs] I know we live in the age of extras, and there are extras that come with it, but there’s no spectacular skydiving sequences that weren’t there before.
Or musical episodes? There could never be a musical episode of Angel. [Laughs] David is very large and I did not want him to beat on me.
I imagine this was a great excuse to watch your handiwork all over again. Embarrassingly enough, I do anyway. Not all the time, but every now and then I go through phases. I’ll watch an episode and go, "Is this the cheesiest thing in the world, that I’m watching my own stuff?" There’s just stuff in here that I adore and honestly, a lot of it isn’t my stuff. A lot of it is Tim Minear’s or somebody else’s, so it can still sort of surprise me in a way that Buffy can’t, because I was overseeing Buffy much more strictly. It’s the show that I love because it kept evolving for five years.
It really did grow into something much deeper than just a spin-off. You know, the idea was that it would be more than a spin-off. That’s why we didn’t do a spin-off until we had an idea that we thought was worth doing. But it took us a while to figure the best way to service that. We really did think it would be this stand-alone show, unlike Buffy. Then it evolved into the opposite of a stand-alone and became a mythological show. Which is very big now, but back then it was problematic… by the fifth year, they said "make it episodic again"! But by then we had enough characters that everything could come from them. And we had a great ensemble. The people we surrounded David with are the best actors and the best friends that I have.
Do you have a favorite episode or season? The seasons are all fascinating to me. I did love Season 3 — I got to do my ballet episode. Season 4 is like one long episode, it’s like 24. It’s ridiculous how [serialized] the whole thing was, because we really weren’t doing that on purpose. It just kept happening. And then Season 5, of course, you know, they lowered the budget, we got Spike… all of those new elements caused it to be really fresh. I think for episodes, I do come back to "Darla," which is sort of the sequel to "Fool for Love" from Buffy. It has some of the best dialogue I have ever heard and some of the most perfectly twisted vampire logic.
Dru, Darla, Spike. They were hysterical in their thinking. Well, there was always something behind it. It was never for an easy laugh… not that we were above a cheap laugh. But it was always an in-character cheap laugh. We always had tremendous fun with the logic of people who were dedicated to evil.
And those types of people are hard to find. Yeah! The thing is, if you’re not living, you just have a different perspective [Laughs]
Are you still working on the comic-book follow-up, Angel: After the Fall? The comic book is coming out based on some guidelines I gave them. Again, I’m not overseeing it the way I did the Buffy [comics], but yeah, there is a comic book coming out that I did sanction as sort of a "well, here’s what we would have done and here’s what you can do if you’re a comic book."
So what would you have done if you had another season? Or even just another episode? Plummeted L.A. straight into Hell!
It’s not there already? [Laughs] I knew that would be your response, but I like L.A. I’ve been an L.A. apologist for a long time. But yeah, the idea was that we were going to completely change everything without building a new set. We were just going to trash the one we had and make it postapocalyptic. So Brian Lynch, the writer of the comic, is taking that and putting it on serious steroids.
The apocalypse was really going to go down? Oh yeah!
And who was coming out of that alleyway alive after the finale? That I won’t say. But you can read the comic book.
Do you go to Comic-Con? Every year.
Did you ever think, as a 10-year-old kid, that you would grow up to be someone who was so sought-out? That people would want your autograph? Is there any 10-year-old who hasn’t? [Laughs]
That’s true. But your fans are so rabid. Well, they’ve had their shots now. [Laughs] No, you always hope that, if you want to be an artist, that you’re going to touch people and they’re going to love you for it and it will be all sunshine and roses. But yeah, it has been different than I expected. A lot of that has to do with timing… the timing of having DVDs and the Internet and the idea of the writer actually entering the public consciousness. I fell into that at just the right time. The way I fell into an emerging network at the right time and then left just as they were going down. I’ve been lucky that way.
Yet you keep it pretty real. The key is to not get all up in yourself. That’s why I stopped doing interviews for a while. I didn’t have anything new to say and I didn’t want to be the guy who has to hear his own voice. If I don’t have anything to say… you know, it can be a trap, let’s just put it that way. And you can go onto the Internet and read three people discussing you endlessly and think "Oh my god, I have the biggest fan base in the world!" [Laughs] And then your movie opens and you find out what’s really going on. [Laughs]
Speaking of movies, how is Goners going? Um, it’s going. It’s not going as quickly as I hoped, but then again, it’s movies and that’s part of how they’re different from TV. The script has been done. And I have rewritten it…and have rewritten it again. It’s the kind of the world we live in.
The nature of the beast. Yes. And I think the operative word there is "beast"!
So there’s no casting in line yet? Not really. I mean we’ve discussed it, but until the studio signs off on a script, that’s pretty much it.
Any chance there would be a role for Sarah Michelle Gellar in it? Um [pause] I don’t know. Huh. I don’t think so. And that’s not exactly how it works. Obviously Sarah is a star… but I don’t know if it’s the sort of thing she would do or not — again, we haven’t gotten that far in the process. But you know, she sort of backed off from Buffy because she wanted to make her bones as other characters. Not that she wasn’t proud of what she’d done, and she should be, but you know, you want to sort of make your own way. So it would probably be the wrong idea. Although I love what Sarah can do. I think she has an amazing talent and we worked really well together for a lot of years, I have the same sort of thing: I want to prove that I can do this on my own and not make everything I do just a chance to have a reunion with my friends. That’s not to say I won’t have a reunion with my friends from time to time — I hope to. But the key is to keep an eye on the past, but at the same time, explore new territories.
Ironically, the new territories you explored are now all over the TV landscape. So many shows bear the Whedon stamp. Supernatural, Reaper... I actually have a stamp, by the way.
You just walk around Hollywood slapping it on scripts? Yeah. [Laughs]
Do you even watch these shows that would never have made it to air if it hadn’t been for your stuff? I missed Reaper, which I wanted to see because everyone said it was cool. So now I have to go find a tape of it. I try to watch the new stuff… I watched Bionic Woman and I loved the Buffy-Faith fight at the end of the premiere.
Right?! I think they even used the same roof. [Laughs] I’m being catty and silly, of course. That show is totally its own and it's much more Battlestar than Buffy, but yeah, you look for traces. There are times that people compare things to Buffy and you go, "Yeah, but… what’s the point?" Then there are times when they compare things to Buffy, like Veronica Mars, and you’re really proud to even be mentioned because their work was so tight. The only real downside to the Buffyverse is the extreme overuse of the term "The Chosen One," which I would love to never hear again. [Laughs] It has shown up everywhere. I think there’s going to be one on My Name Is Earl.
How fitting. You created a monster! I appreciate that people are doing these shows because they’re fun, they’re what I love. But it’s more the way female characters are treated in the shows, in the way they can headline or take charge in a show that’s not necessarily a drama. That they’re taken a little bit more seriously in genre terms than they used to be. I don’t in any way take all the credit for that, but I like to think I was part of it. Every woman doesn’t have to be the damsel in distress. That’s more important to me than if it’s high school or has a supernatural element.
But you have to admit that you’re the best thing to happen to TV demons since Trilogy of Terror. [Laughs] Dude, Trilogy of Terror rocked!
Seriously, though. Even Ghost Whisperer is going there. It’s going to turn out that the town is over some sort of Hellmouth. Yeah, but it’ll be more of a Hellnostril to keep things fresh. Seriously, everything that I have done, someone did before me. It’s really how you mix it to make it your own and how much you look after it once it’s moving. How much you care about every episode. It’s not like I invented the wheel, I was just on it while it was turning."
|
|
|
Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on May 15, 2008 9:03:17 GMT -5
Q & A with Joss Whedon about Dollhouse and how it happened. He mentions the basic premise of the show, but nothing spoilery as far as I can tell. If I'm wrong*, I abase myself before the COWs and will take my punishment like a hellgoddess. *Grovels and moos* *And I usually am.
|
|
|
Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on May 15, 2008 13:47:18 GMT -5
Q & A with Joss Whedon about Dollhouse and how it happened. He mentions the basic premise of the show, but nothing spoilery as far as I can tell. If I'm wrong*, I abase myself before the COWs and will take my punishment like a hellgoddess. *Grovels and moos* *And I usually am. I'm sure when you became a writer you didn't think viewers would be this familiar with your name. Do you like it?[/b/
There are not two parts to that answer. I like it. I'm sorry. I'm superficial.I do so love that man. Julia, interrupted by a phone call and wandering back a half-hour later.
|
|
|
Post by Sara on Jul 1, 2008 20:20:06 GMT -5
Fun TVGuide interview with Joss about Dr. Horrible. Mild spoilers ahead...Two of my favorite things in all of show business— musical comedy and Joss Whedon — combine in the funniest, freshest TV special of the summer, which happens to be available only on your computer starting in mid-July. I had the great good fortune late last week to get a sneak peek at all 42 minutes of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Whedon's stylishly scrappy, lovably cheesy and insanely tuneful return to the form for which he showed such incredible aptitude in the classic "Once More, With Feeling" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.Dr. Horrible, written during the writers' strike and filmed in six days this spring "on favors and waivers" by a crew of longtime Whedon loyalists, will be streamed for free in what Whedon cheerfully calls an "Internet miniseries event" on the show's official website (www.drhorrible.com) in three chapters. Part 1 will be available Tuesday, July 15, with the following segments (each roughly 14 minutes) available July 17 and 19. All three parts will stay up only through July 20, but deals are currently underway to make it available for downloading shortly thereafter. The ultimate goal: a DVD, at which time perhaps enough profit can be made "to pay the people who were doing us favors," says Whedon. In a chat following my nearly private screening (attended only by Whedon, a few of his New York-based agents and me), Whedon confided, "We're already working on some of the DVD extras, which are going to be the finest in all the land. We're actually going to do, in addition to the commentary, what we refer to as ‘commentary with an exclamation point'! A musical commentary that is a completely original musical, that is all commentary songs, and we're writing that now." As I gasped at that audacious notion, he continued: "We're just piling it on. We're like, we're going to make more fun of the idea of extras than anything else." All in keeping with the sweetly satirical tone of Dr. Horrible itself, which reminded me at various times of Little Shop of Horrors and, in its more bombastic moments, Sweeney Todd (a Whedon favorite, and mine as well). [Some mild spoilers follow.] In the title role, and starring with adorable panache: How I Met Your Mother's Neil Patrick Harris, whose musical-theater chops Whedon discovered when attending the 2004 Broadway revival of his idol Stephen Sondheim's Assassins. First seen perfecting his cackling laugh in hopes of being taken seriously by the Evil League of Evil, and reading snarky e-mails from his skeptical online following, Harris plays a wannabe mad scientist — "The world's a mess, and I just need to rule it" — who's perfecting a "freeze ray" with which he can stop time and, according to one lyric, "stop the pain." Because, you see, Dr. Horrible — real name "Billy" — does have a heart, and it belongs to winsome do-gooder and Laundromat buddy Penny (Felicia Day, one of the "potential" slayers in Buffy's final season). Some of Harris's best work, when he isn't singing arias of evil and comically mugging, is in his bashful, stammering pining for Penny — who naturally falls for Dr. Horrible's arch-nemesis Captain Hammer, a buffoonish cad of a narcissistic superhero ("I don't go to the gym. I'm just naturally like this") played with hilariously villainous cartoon relish by Firefly vet Nathan Fillion. Everyone in this tortured triangle gets big numbers, from lyrical ballads to soaring (and usually very funny) anthems. Quite a lot of music, written by Whedon with his brother Jed, is crammed into this mini-movie, and if you're like me, you'll want to hear it again and again. So how did we get lucky enough to get a new Whedon musical at this point in time? Let's just say it's one of the few positive things to come out of the writers' strike. "I was really sick of not doing things. I'd been writing movies nobody was making. I got tired of that. And even though I had this series (Fox's Dollhouse) coming up, we were on strike—and well, I thought we were going to hold out a little bit longer—but it just felt right," Whedon says. Looking back on the Buffy musical episode, he says: "I never wanted to leave that musical place. I thought about doing this as a podcast just so I could write songs, like a radio show. And then when the strike happened, everything was about making online content. But everything was very overblown. Or underblown. It was either me and my video camera in my backyard or let's partner up and get millions of dollars. Neither of these things was gonna fit the paradigm that will make me a musical, so I finally decided to do it myself." The idea, he says, "was to show that you can do this [original Internet content] on a very different scale than people are thinking about. I felt like we stretched our dollars just as far as they will go. It's a pretty extraordinary piece even at the price tag it would cost to normally produce it if you couldn't call in any favors." (He won't go on record to discuss the budget, which was much less than the usual hour of TV production, but jokes that it cost "twice as much as Once.") "Also, we were able to just completely bypass the system—not in a sense of giving the finger to the majors, because we'll probably end up partnering for distribution with somebody if they're interested—and some of the reason this came out the way it did was because people who are employed by the big guys could afford to do this. And we got the Universal backlot for a song because of our relationships there, and people were very sweet. I mean, during the strike there was a certain amount of justifiable bile, but my relationships with the people who actually produce the things, I like to think of as very strong." Many relationships, personal and professional, came into play in making Dr. Horrible. His brothers Jed and Zack helped him write it, along with Jed's fiance Maurissa Tancharoen. Jed appears as part of a recurring Evil League of Evil chorus and Tancharoen can be seen as one of Captain Hammer's fawning groupies. Whedon cohorts Marti Noxon and David Fury, who both did cameos in "Once More With Feeling," return as snarky newscasters. And then of course there's Fillion, a part of Whedon's repertory company since Buffy and Firefly. "I'd heard him sing, but I just knew that even if he couldn't, he could sell it. He's Nathan, and he was great." As for casting Neil Patrick Harris, all it took was a phone call. "We all agreed there was really nobody else that should play Dr. Horrible. I didn't even get the sentence out before he said yes. And then I sort of got defensive (Whedon lapses into fanboy-speak): ‘No no no, it's really going to be good,' and Neil's like, ‘I said yes.' And I said, ‘No no no, I mean, but I mean the point is, is mean I mean' … I couldn't handle it." The strike ended before filming started, so they postponed the shoot until a break in How I Met Your Mother production in March (wrapping around the same time as the Paley Fest's Buffy reunion which I moderated). How did this affect Whedon's work on the Dollhouse pilot? "I told Fox going in that I'm making this, it's going to take six days of shooting, and during those six days you'll get bupkis. They're like it doesn't matter, you're still filming your pilot—that you haven't broken yet—in two months." He sighs. "It's been quite a time." Which begs the question: Could there ever be a musical Dollhouse episode? "Well, Eliza (Dushku) has a lovely voice. But first I have to make a normal Dollhouse, which is hard enough." So how's it going? "There's still tweaks. Birth pangs. It's never simple, but it's going well." As for Whedon's Internet future, while there has already been talk of Dr. Horrible sequels, for now Whedon is waiting to see how this experiment plays out. "Whether this has any impact on the Internet is unclear to me. It will be something that hasn't been done. And although some people came up with a plan on how to monetize this right away, our first priority was to put this out. We do it for the fans, we do it as an advertisement for itself and for just this culture, this idea of people who are doing something smaller scale but hopefully in such a way they can reach a lot of people. And maybe then it can make us an eleven-ty kadillion dollars. Or maybe it won't." If there's any justice, Dr. Horrible will eventually make a bundle. Far from horrible, it's terrific.
|
|
|
Post by Sara on Jul 9, 2008 14:21:19 GMT -5
|
|