Moviefone Editorial

Tag: joss-whedon

  • HBO Orders Joss Whedon’s New Sci-Fi Drama ‘The Nevers’

    Joss Whedon
    Marvel

    Welcome to the Whedonverse, HBO.

    The network has given a straight-to-series order to Joss Whedon’s return to television. “The Nevers” is described as an “epic science-fiction drama about a gang of Victorian women who find themselves with unusual abilities, relentless enemies, and a mission that might change the world.”

    HBO reportedly outbid multiple bidders, including Netflix, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

    Whedon will serve as writer, director, executive producer, and showrunner. He is well-known as the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” “Firefly,” and “Dollhouse.” He also co-created “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” with brother Jed.

    In recent years, he’s focused on movies, including writing and directing “The Avengers” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” as well as taking on post-production directing duties for “Justice League.”

    But this marks Whedon’s first sole TV project since 2009’s “Dollhouse.”

    “I honestly couldn’t be more excited. ‘The Nevers’ is maybe the most ambitious narrative I’ve created, and I can’t imagine a better home for it than HBO,” Whedon said in a statement.

    “Not only are they the masters of cinematic longform, but their instant understanding of my odd, intimate epic was as emotional as it was incisive. It’s been too long since I created an entirely new fictional world, and the HBO team offer not just scope and experience, not just ‘prestige,’ but a passionate collaboration. I could go on, but — I’m impatiently grateful to say — I have work to do.”

  • Tom Cruise Playing Iron Man? It Almost Happened

    Robert Downey, Jr. is so closely associated with the character of Tony Stark that it’s hard to imagine anyone else assuming the role. (And it’s true — he probably can’t think of anything else either; the last time he played a character who wasn’t a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist was way back in 2014.)

    But it wasn’t always like this. For a time, one of the biggest stars on earth was being eyed for the roll. And it would have been a very different Tony Stark indeed.

    The history of the “Iron Man” film takes more twists and turns than the actual movie does, but it began in 1990, with Universal quietly developing the property as a vehicle for writer-director Stuart Gordon. (His take was going to be grungy and low budget and, judging by his previous output, very funny.)

    From then on, the project went through at least two more studios (20th Century Fox and New Line), before finally returning to Marvel and the then-burgeoning Marvel Studios (under the supervision of producer Kevin Feige).

    In the late 1990’s, while the movie was still being tinkered with at Fox, Tom Cruise expressed an interest in playing the arms-dealer-cum-superhero. But, at the time, so many names were being tossed around (including, of course, comic book super fan Nicolas Cage), that it’s hard to figure out what was just rumor mongering and what had some basis in fact. But Feige actually addressed the casting rumor in 2004, shortly after New Line gave up on developing the film and passed the right back to Marvel Studios. (New Line had attempted a number of versions of the movie — including one that would have potentially been written and directed by Joss Whedon.) The typically political Feige said, “There have been discussions [with Cruise] over the past several years and there are a number of factors involved.”

    Many of those factors were, undoubtedly, money-related.

    When production began on “Iron Man,” Marvel Studios was just starting out. The idea of an independent production company born out of a comic book company seemed crazy. And, to some degree, it was.

    But under the visionary leadership of Feige, it was also brilliant, and shaped much of the cinematic landscape for the following ten years. But in those early days, they didn’t have either the creative or financial capital to throw around. They had to be smart and lean and scrappy.

    While it seems like there were some discussions, in earnest, for Cruise to be the first hero of the nascent Marvel Cinematic Universe, the heard reality was that they probably couldn’t afford him.

    They could, however, afford Robert Downey, Jr. When RDJ was hired for the role, he was shaking off the reputation for being a troubled performer; an actor who got more attention for his run-ins with the law than the movies that he was starring in. At the time, he was an unknown commodity and a potentially risky one at that. Just a couple years earlier, he had to drop out of a Woody Allen film because the insurance company wouldn’t cover him. He was a brilliant actor but an unpredictable one. And, again, the visionary, risk-taking Feige listened to his creative team (led by director Jon Favreau) and made the call: Downey, Jr. would be Iron Man.

    He’d go on to essay the character through some of the most successful movies of all time, including this past weekend’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” which is already breaking box office records both at home and abroad.

    In the years since “Iron Man’s” release (and subsequent runaway success), Cruise has downplayed his involvement in those early discussions and dismissed his interest in the genre as a whole.

    In 2016, when Jimmy Kimmel asked if he had ever been approached to be in a superhero movie, Cruise flatly said, “No.” “I enjoy those films a lot,” Cruise said. But his commitment to the “Mission: Impossible” (and, at the time, “Jack Reacher“) franchises meant that he was more locked into “different kinds of films.”

    And just this past week, while talking up this summer’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” at CinemaCon, he was asked how close he came to assuming the shiny robotic armor. “Not close,” Cruise told ComicBook.com. “I love Robert Downey Jr. I can’t imagine anyone else in that role, and I think it’s perfect for him.” He did seem to walk back his earlier commits about not being interested in those types of movies. “I look at a movie and I don’t rule anything out,” Cruise said, somewhat optimistically.

    So that leaves us just a little bit hopeful — just because he wasn’t Iron Man, doesn’t me he can’t bring another four-color hero to life on the big screen. This is Cruise after all; he can do just about anything.

  • Zack Snyder ‘Liked’ a DC Fan’s Post Shading Joss Whedon After ‘Batgirl’ Exit

    Do Joss Whedon and Zack Snyder have Taylor Swift/Katy Perry-level bad blood?

    Director Zack Snyder launched the DCEU with “Man of Steel” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Whedon took over directing “Justice League” after Snyder was reportedly fired last year. After the disappointment of the final product — which still has Snyder’s name on it — DC fans have been pushing to see Snyder’s director’s cut of “Justice League.”

    Well, yesterday, Whedon said he was exiting the “Batgirl” movie he was supposed to write and direct for DC/Warner Bros. He supposedly just didn’t have a story, but others suspect the flaws of “Justice League” (and some of his own personal issues) may have been to blame.

    One DC fan responded to a Vulture report on Whedon’s exit by saying it was basically good news for the DCEU that Whedon was out. Her Vero post shading Whedon (and the media) was liked by both Zack Snyder and DCEU photographer Clay Enos. Here are screen shots via Batman-News:

    Clay Enos definitely seems to be Team Zack Snyder; Snyder directed “300,” and Enos responded to another fan’s joking support of Snyder as “The Tragic Hero” (with Whedon as “The Abominable Weapon”):

    Twitter does need an edit button.

    The DCEU keeps subtracting people — from Snyder and Whedon to possibly Ben Affleck, depending on what’s up with the Batman standalone. Reports just came out yesterday that James Wan’s “Aquaman” is looking solid, but it’s early days for that movie. And fans have been burned before. But here’s hoping DC fans do end up having some good news to rally around and celebrate by the end of the year.

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  • Hailee Steinfeld Wants to Be DC’s Batgirl: ‘I Would Love That’

    Premiere Of Universal Pictures' 'Pitch Perfect 3' - ArrivalsAttention, Joss Whedon: Another Batgirl candidate is stepping forward.

    Hailee Steinfeld is currently promoting “Pitch Perfect 3,” which opens this Friday, and she recently talked to MTV International about her superhero ambitions. MTV asked both Hailee and Rebel Wilson, separately, if they’d be up for a superhero movie.

    Here’s what Hailee Steinfeld answered:

    Hailee: “Yes, absolutely. Definitely on my bucket list. So, you know. New year, new … we’ll see what happens.”

    MTV: “What character would you want to [play]?”

    Hailee: “I don’t know. That’s a hard one to say. I don’t know.”

    MTV: “We think you’d make a great Batgirl.”

    Hailee: “Thank you!”

    MTV: “What do you think of that?”

    Hailee: “Not gonna lie. That’s kind of what I was thinking when I didn’t quite know what to say. I would love that.”

    Watch the video to see Hailee answer the superhero question, and also hear Rebel’s idea for her role:As ScreenRant noted, Hailee isn’t the first name to come up as a potential Barbara Gordon.

    “Early rumors concerning Whedon’s project indicated The 100’s Lindsey Morgan could be a frontrunner for Batgirl, though the writer-director shot those reports down since little work had been done on the film yet. Since then, Quantico actress Priyanka Chopra also voiced interest in Batgirl, while fans have put forward Don’t Breathe actress Jane Levy as a potential Barbara Gordon. However, as of yet, there are no shortlists for the role and the project hasn’t even begun the casting process.”

    Any of those names jump out to you? Anyone you would like to see added to the list?

    In March, it was announced that Joss Whedon would cross the superhero aisle from Marvel to DC to direct — and write, and produce — this as-yet-untitled Batgirl movie. In April, he told USA Today he was looking for “probably somebody new” for the role. “Somebody who is willing to go the distance. It is going to be hard. I want somebody who’s going to get in the trenches with me.”

    We’ll see what happens as that progresses. “Pitch Perfect 3” opens December 22nd, 2017.

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  • 3 Reasons Why ‘Justice League’ Bombed at the Box Office

    If “Justice League” were a typical Hollywood release, Warner Bros. would be ecstatic right now. After all, the movie debuted to an estimated $94 million, easily conquering the box office chart.

    But of course, “Justice” is not a typical Warners release. It’s a $300 million superhero saga that, by bringing together all the biggest heroes in the DC Expanded Universe for the first time in a live-action film, was supposed to be a cornerstone of the studio’s business plan for the next several years. It was supposed to be DC’s own “Avengers“; indeed, Warners even hired “Avengers” series director Joss Whedon to complete the film after director Zack Snyder had to drop out partway through due to a family tragedy.

    Back in September, after “Wonder Woman” had become the most successful domestic box office performer in the DCEU franchise so far, pundits were predicting a $150 million premiere for “Justice League.” In recent weeks, they downgraded that estimate to about $110 or $120 million.

    So a $94 million debut is an embarrassment, both for being so far off and for failing to crack the $100 million mark. It’s also a sign of trouble for a movie whose production and marketing costs are so high that it’ll have to gross about $1 billion worldwide just to break even. And as the lowest debut among the five DCEU movies to date, it’s an ominous figure for a multibillion-dollar franchise whose next several installments depended heavily on this one being a hit.

    Why were the experts so overconfident about “Justice League,” and why didn’t it enjoy a more superheroic opening? Here are three reasons.

    1. Competition

    If you were scheduling the release of a DCEU superhero epic, would you do it just two weeks into the run of a superhero epic from rival Marvel? Probably not, and yet “Justice League” was hobbled right out of the gate by having to contend with “Thor: Ragnarok,” still going strong this weekend with an estimated $21.8 million.

    Also, for “Justice League” to succeed, it needed to draw upon a broad audience that included both men and women. Unfortunately, there were many more movies in the multiplex with appeal to both demographics this weekend. There was Julia Roberts‘s drama “Wonder,” which opened in second place with an estimated $27.1 million. That was about $9 million above expectations, thanks perhaps to especially strong reviews (84 percent fresh at Rotten Tomatoes) and audience word-of-mouth (an A+ grade at CinemaScore).

    Many families also went to see Christmas-themed family cartoon “The Star,” which opened in sixth place with an estimated $10 million. Like “Wonder,” “The Star” pleased both critics and audiences enough to debut well above expectations, by about $3 million. And then there were holdover hits “Daddy’s Home 2,” “Murder on the Orient Express,” and “A Bad Moms Christmas,” all films that appealed to numerous audience segments, which sold a combined $35.5 million in tickets this weekend.

    Altogether, it was a very good weekend at the multiplex, the fourth best of 2017 so far and the biggest in the more than four months since the July premiere of “Spider Man: Homecoming.” The total take for all movies was just $35,000 shy of $200 million. It could have pushed past that benchmark if only “Justice League” had been a stronger choice in the face of so many worthy alternatives.

    2. Theater Count

    It’s easy to forget how important this is. “Justice League” was booked onto 4,051 screens, which sounds like a lot, but the four previous DCEU movies screened in even more theaters, one or two hundred more. Of course, they also all enjoyed higher per-screen averages than “Justice League,” but some of them not by much. “Justice League” claimed an average of $23,698 per screen, compared to $24,790 for “Wonder Woman” and $27,720 for “Man of Steel.” Given those numbers, if “Justice League” had played on just 169 more screens, it would have cracked $100 million.

    “Suicide Squad” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” both had much higher per-screen averages, well above $30,000, but they also opened at less competitive times of the year (August and March, respectively). Taking into account the current crowded marketplace and the lower theater count, analysts should have realized how unrealistic it was to expect a “Justice League” debut of $150 or even $110 million.

    3. Bad Buzz

    There will be a lot of grumbling over how poorly the movie fared at Rotten Tomatoes, where aggregated reviews from critics averaged out to a poor 40 percent fresh score. There was some controversy over the site’s refusal to divulge the score until the last minute, though that was apparently more a gimmick to get people to watch the reveal on “See It/Skip It,” RT’s streaming show on Facebook, than to aid Warners (a minority stakeholder in RT’s parent company) by keeping the low score hidden from advance ticket buyers.

    Paying customers had a similarly middling response, judging by the B+ grade they gave it at CinemaScore. That’s better than the B they gave “Batman v Superman,” equal to the grade they gave “Suicide Squad,” and weaker than the A- they gave “Man of Steel” or the A they gave “Wonder Woman.”

    The meh response among fans and critics alike points to a larger problem for the franchise, which has been execution. DC has an ardent fan base, for whom such characters as Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman have built up nearly eight decades’ worth of good will. They’ll come see any DCEU movie, whether out of loyalty or FOMO. But the DCEU’s grim, dour treatment of their stories has alienated many viewers. (Christopher Nolan‘s “Dark Knight” trilogy offered a similarly stoic treatment of Batman, but it was also more thought-provoking and substantive than the DCEU movies have been.) A lot of critics and fans blame Snyder, who set that tone with “Man of Steel” and continued it with “Batman v Superman” and now “Justice League.” Whedon came aboard after principal photography ended, writing and directing enough additional scenes to earn a co-screenwriting credit, and he may or may not be responsible for the lighter tone and more streamlined plotting of “Justice League”; nonetheless, critics and fans have found the tone and performances inconsistent.

    With “Wonder Woman,” director Patty Jenkins showed that DCEU films could successfully strike a balance between levity and seriousness. Her tone and Gal Gadot‘s enthusiastic performance won over diehard fans and casual viewers alike. Their movie showed that there was another way forward for the DCEU, but it also may have raised expectations so high that “Justice League,” with its difficult production history, simply couldn’t meet them.

    It’s not all bad news for “Justice League,” which has already earned an estimated $185.5 million overseas. Still, even if it performs as well over the next few weeks as the most successful DCEU installments (“Batman v Superman” and “Wonder Woman”), it’ll likely top out at around $800 million worldwide. After you deduct the theater owners’ share of the grosses (about half), as well as production and marketing costs, that figure won’t be enough to make “Justice League” profitable.

    If future DCEU movies are going to be the mass crowd pleasers they have to be in order to earn the 10-figure grosses they need to justify their cost, they’ll have to find another creative approach to the characters. Whatever they’re doing now, it’s not working as it should.

  • Fans Petition Warner Bros. to Release Zack Snyder’s ‘Justice League’ Director’s Cut 

    An Alternative View Of The 'Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice' New York PremiereAn angry “Justice League” petition is picking up steam.

    This Change.org petition to Warner Bros. was actually started almost a week before today’s November 17 release of the film. Titled “Zack Snyder’s Director’s Cut and Tom Holkenborg’s (Junkie XL) Score for Home Release,” the petition now has about 7,000 signatures toward its goal of 7,500.

    The petition description is quite lengthy and filled with a section ENTIRELY IN ALL CAPS. But the crux of the argument is that when director Zack Snyder left the film for personal reasons, and Joss Whedon took over, a lot changed and fans would like to see Snyder’s original vision. The film lost its original composer, and also got shortened to a very brief two hours. So they’re hoping to at least see what Snyder had intended in the eventual home release.

    Here’s the start of the petition:

    “We the undersigned make this petition, because during the last few months, the film Justice League underwent a few changes in terms of composer and runtime. Zack Snyder, director of the film, screened Justice League to Warner Bros. executives earlier this year, they where happy with the film, but the director himself felt the film needed something more, he contacted Joss Whedon, director of The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, to write a few additional scenes with plans to shoot them over the summer, but an unfortunate tragedy in his family happened and he understandably had to step down, Warner Bros. following Snyder’s departure, released a statement saying that Justice League will be finished as Zack Snyder’s vision, but a week after that statement, composer Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL) was replaced with Danny Elfman, much to the dismay of fans, who were concerned about the thematic compositional elements from Man of Steel and Batman v Superman being changed, due to the change in composer. In early October cinemas confirmed that the runtime for Justice League will be 2hrs long, much to the shock of fans, who were asking themselves: “how will a film that has 6 main characters, their supporting players, a story that revolves around an alien invasion, the terraforming of earth and the return of a familiar face, would fit in a 2hr runtime?” […]

    Justice League is the culmination of the alien’s story and the beginning of a new chapter in the DC Extended Universe. Fans have been waiting for years, while others have waited decades for the film to finally arrive on the silver screen. The 2hr runtime is disrespectful towards Zack Snyder’s vision and towards the fans who have waited for more than a year to see the alien’s story come to an end.”

    There’s a lot more, so read it all and check out the comments.

    You had to know a blame game was coming, considering all of the drama behind-the-scenes to make this film, and the mixed reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes score for the movie is currently 40%, but the Audience Score is much higher at 86%, continuing the usual DC vs critics narrative. The Metacritic score is 46.

    It’s possible what Zack Snyder really had in mind for “Justice League” was this Supreme Court version, which premiered on “Jimmy Kimmel Live”:You Can’t Handle the Ruth!

    “Justice League,” directed by Zack Snyder with an assist from Joss Whedon, is now in theaters. No date has been released yet for the home release.

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  • Joss Whedon’s Ex-Wife Blogs Takedown of ‘Lovable Geek-Feminist’ Hypocrite

    'The Cabin in the Woods' Greenroom Photo Op - 2012 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive FestivalYikes, again, for Joss Whedon. The creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly,” and director of “The Avengers” and “Justice League” reshoots, clearly has a very messy private life that just got very public.

    Whedon and Kai Cole were married in 1995 and had two kids before separating in 2012 and divorcing last year. Now that the divorce is apparently finalized, Cole has written a guest blog for TheWrap calling Whedon a hypocrite for his public persona as a champion of women’s rights, when he (allegedly) confessed to cheating on her for years, taking advantage of his status as a producer/director to have multiple affairs.

    Cole said Whedon had his first “secret affair” on the set of “Buffy.” Here’s part of her post:

    “Fifteen years later, when he was done with our marriage and finally ready to tell the truth, he wrote me, ‘When I was running ‘Buffy,’ I was surrounded by beautiful, needy, aggressive young women. It felt like I had a disease, like something from a Greek myth. Suddenly I am a powerful producer and the world is laid out at my feet and I can’t touch it.’ But he did touch it. He said he understood, ‘I would have to lie — or conceal some part of the truth — for the rest of my life,’ but he did it anyway, hoping that first affair, ‘would be ENOUGH, that THEN we could move on and outlast it.’

    Joss admitted that for the next decade and a half, he hid multiple affairs and a number of inappropriate emotional ones that he had with his actresses, co-workers, fans and friends, while he stayed married to me. […]

    Then later, after he confessed everything, he told me, ‘I let myself love you. I stopped worrying about the contradiction. As a guilty man I knew the only way to hide was to act as though I were righteous. And as a husband, I wanted to be with you like we had been. I lived two lives.’ When he walked out of our marriage, and was trying to make ‘things seem less bewildering’ to help me understand how he could have lied to me for so long, he said, ‘In many ways I was the HEIGHT of normal, in this culture. We’re taught to be providers and companions and at the same time, to conquer and acquire — specifically sexually — and I was pulling off both!’

    Despite understanding, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong, he never conceded the hypocrisy of being out in the world preaching feminist ideals, while at the same time, taking away my right to make choices for my life and my body based on the truth. He deceived me for 15 years, so he could have everything he wanted. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to fighting for women’s rights, committed to our marriage, and to the women he worked with. But I now see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.”

    Why is she telling everyone this? Cole said she’s recently been asked about her divorce in the press, and there’s “misinformation” out there, so she felt compelled to share her side of things. Cole also wants the organizations that honor Whedon as a feminist to know the kind of guy they’re honoring, and for the women around him (and possibly on his sets) to see a fuller picture.

    Buffy the Vampire Slayer ScreeningHere’s more from her guest blog:

    “I don’t think it is fair to me or other women to remain silent any longer. […]

    It has not been easy, because even though in my personal life I have been completely open about what happened, publicly people only know his superficial presentation of us: him as the lovable geek-feminist and me in the background, as his wife and supporter.

    Until recently, Joss was still letting the illusion of our marriage stay intact. Now that it is finally public, I want to let women know that he is not who he pretends to be. I want the people who worship him to know he is human, and the organizations giving him awards for his feminist work, to think twice in the future about honoring a man who does not practice what he preaches. But no matter what happens, or how people interpret this statement, I no longer have to carry the burden of Joss’ long-term deceit and confessions. I am free.”

    TheWrap tried to get comment from Joss Whedon, and his spokesperson did share this much:

    “While this account includes inaccuracies and misrepresentations which can be harmful to their family, Joss is not commenting, out of concern for his children and out of respect for his ex-wife.”

    Maybe out of concern for their children, but the ex-wife put up with what she considered a public facade for decades, so it wouldn’t be out of respect for her. She wants her truth out there, even if it isn’t his truth. This story could probably be told dozens of times over across Hollywood (just watch “First Wives Club”), but cheating allegations and tense marriages are certainly not unique to Hollywood.

    UPDATE: After Cole’s guest blog started making the rounds, a Whedon fan site announced it would stop updating content, writing, “So farewell then. 15 years is a long time and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. But now it’s time to say goodbye. No more threads after this one, we’re closing down. The site will at some stage become a read only site.”

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  • Ben Affleck: ‘Justice League’ Is ‘Interesting Product of Two Directors’

    The more the merrier, it seems, when it comes to directing “Justice League.”

    The superhero team-up movie started off with Zack Snyder in the director’s chair, but he left the project in May due to a family tragedy. Joss Whedon (“Avengers”) took over reshoots and star Ben Affleck, who plays Batman, calls the directorial team-up fortuitous.

    “The best person we could’ve possibly found was Joss. We got really lucky that he stepped in,” he told Entertainment Weekly.

    It’s unusual for movies to have two different directors (see: the furor over the directorial change-up on the Han Solo “Star Wars” movie). But Affleck believes the Snyder/Whedon mash-up will work.

    It’s “an interesting product of two directors, both with kind of unique visions, both with really strong takes,” he said. “I’ve never had that experience before making a movie. I have to say, I really love working with Zack, and I really love the stuff we’ve done with Joss.”

    Affleck also waved off rumors that the extensive reshoots indicated trouble with the project.

    “I’ve never worked on a movie that didn’t do reshoots,” he said, noting, “‘Argo,’ we did reshoots for a week and a half! Four days on ‘Gone Baby Gone!’”

    “Justice League” opens in theaters November 17.

  • 16 Things You Never Knew About the ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Movie

    It seemed like just your ordinary, sweet, little, satirical, high school vampire horror comedy. Certainly when it was released 25 years ago this week, on July 31, 1992, no one could have imagined that the movie “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” would launch an empire.

    The cult film resulted not only in one of the most fiercely cherished TV series that ever aired, but it also helped launch the career of Joss Whedon, the pop culture auteur whose two “Avengers” films are among the biggest blockbusters ever made. Oh, and it jump-started the careers of several A-list actors, too.

    A quarter-century later, we may all live in Whedon’s world, yet we scarcely have a clue how it all started, an origin story that involves country music icon Dolly Parton, a ridiculously rushed production schedule, and some massive ego clashes among the filmmakers and stars. Here’s how it happened.
    1. “Buffy” was born when Whedon, then a 25-year-old second-generation TV writer with some “Roseanne” credits to his name, wrote his first screenplay. He sold it to Sandollar, Parton’s film production company.

    2. Fran Rubel Kuzui won the directing gig on the strength of her first film, “Tokyo Pop,” a fizzy sensation at the Cannes Film Festival.
    3. At the time the “Buffy” film was cast, its most famous name chose to play Buffy’s male love interest, Pike. That was Beverly Hills, 90210″-mania. Trying to break into movies, the sideburned heartthrob wisely chose not to take a traditional leading-man role, but rather, to fill a supporting part, so that he wouldn’t be responsible for carrying the movie and its box office prospects on his shoulders.

    4. With Perry cast, the movie had to be rushed into production, as he had only a brief hiatus between “90210” seasons. And the studio wanted the film in theaters before the end of the summer. So the cameras had to start rolling in five weeks and wrap just six weeks after that. “It’s a kids’ movie that Fox wanted made quickly,” Kuzui told Movieline magazine during the production.
    5. Perry and star Kristy Swanson (of “Mannequin 2: On the Move” fame) weren’t going to attract ticket buyers in overseas markets, so the filmmakers sought some internationally-known names for supporting roles. That’s how Rutger Hauer became nemesis Lothos and Donald Sutherland became mentor Merrick.

    6. The rushed schedule meant that, instead of dismissing the writer, as Hollywood directors usually do, Kuzui kept Whedon on hand for rewrites. One of her first requests was that Whedon give Lothos a female sidekick, to be played by “Twin Peaks” co-star Joan Chen.
    7. Chen, however, turned out to be unavailable, so Kuzui had Whedon radically revise the part, for Paul “Pee-wee Herman” Reubens.

    8. Other big stars whom Kuzui sought in vain to cameo as vampires included David Bowie, Mick Jagger, and Cary Elwes.
    9. A 17-year-old Hilary Swank got her first big break in Hollywood playing one of Buffy’s airhead friends. A 19-year-old Ben Affleck (above) also got an early career break, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role as a high school jock.

    10. Future “Buffy” series regular Seth Green was in the film, but his role was cut. You can still see the back of his head for a few seconds.
    11. Whedon has famously disavowed the “Buffy” movie as a dilution of the dark, haunted parable of adolescence he perfected later in the TV version. He ultimately walked off the set after disagreements with Kuzui, whom he felt made his vision too sunny and cheery, and with Sutherland, whose penchant for changing his dialogue or important character details (he didn’t want Merrick to die) drove Whedon crazy.

    12. Over the years, Whedon fans made fun of Hauer’s broad performance, but Whedon found his work less damaging to the movie than Sutherland’s. “I have to give him credit because he was there. He was into it,” Whedon said of Hauer in a 2001 AV Club interview. Of Sutherland, Whedon said, “He’s a great actor. He can read the phone book, and I’m interested. But the thing is, he acts well enough that you didn’t notice, with his little rewrites, and his little ideas about what his character should do, that he was actually destroying the movie more than Rutger was. So I got out of there. I had to run away.”
    13. Kuzui also clashed with Sutherland over his creative choices. “He was an enormous pain in the ass,” she told Movieline, adding, “and so am I. I don’t think I’ll ever learn from any actor as much as he taught me.”

    14. Future “Avengers” star Robert Downey Jr. visited the “Buffy” set. “So you’re the man in town now, the new guy,” Downey said to newly-minted It Boy Perry. “Get over it.” Of the ego-deflating incident, Perry told Movieline, “That was so funny, so cool.”
    15. The movie cost a reported $9 million to make. It earned back $16.6 million in North America, making it a cult success at best.

    16. Five years later, of course, Whedon got a second crack at the idea, and his teen heroine suddenly became the center of a successful franchise, with the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” TV series, spinoff series “Angel,” and a line of comic books. Still, in 2009, five years after “Buffy” ended its seven-season run, history nearly repeated itself. A big-screen “Buffy” reboot was announced, one that would involve neither Whedon nor the stars of the show. Whedon fans, including TV Buffy Sarah Michelle Gellar, loudly denounced the idea of a Whedon-free “Buffy” movie. By 2011, the stalled project lay dormant. But as “Buffy” fans know, the dead often spring back to life.

  • Joss Whedon’s Old ‘Wonder Woman’ Script Leaks & Fans Are Appalled

    SKOREA-ENTERTAINMENT-MOVIE-AVENGERSYikes. Joss Whedon‘s unproduced 2006 “Wonder Woman” script recently surfaced and went viral, and it was so surprisingly bad that many readers are now worried about what Whedon will do to DC’s “Batgirl.”

    We all have rough early work out there, and Whedon has probably changed a lot in the past 11 years, but after the success of the 2017 “Wonder Woman” movie written by Allan Heinberg and directed by Patty Jenkins, fans were curious about the Whedon Wonder Woman who almost was. Turns out, Steve Trevor comes off as more of the main character, with cringe-worthy treatment for Diana Prince and the women of Themyscira.

    You can read whole script here, but Rave Sashayed‏ got the conversation trending on Twitter by live tweeting reactions, with more comments from other readers:


    There’s a lot more on the thread, including reactions from others curious enough to read the script:

    Ouch. Some fans defended Whedon, arguing that you shouldn’t judge him based on this old unmade script.

    Truth. This is the guy who gave us “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” among other amazing things. And this script is from 11 years ago. Then again, Whedon also faced criticism for writing/directing Black Widow’s storyline in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” which came out in 2015, so the argument on that side is that maybe he still doesn’t quite get it.

    Whedon took over for director Zack Snyder to finish up “Justice League,” which stars Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and opens Nov. 17. So he kind of got to be part of the “Wonder Woman” story after all. He’s both writing and directing DC’s “Batgirl” movie, and last we heard he’s looking for someone “new” for the role.

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