Whedon In Final Talks to Direct Marvel’s ‘The Avengers’

Posted by on Apr 14, 2010 in Movies

Joss Whedon, the writer/creator/producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse is currently in final talks with Marvel to direct Marvel’s ‘The Avengers’, a film that would amount to an all-star team of Marvel superheros, including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), as well as SHIELD leader Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) plus I’m sure a host of other heroes (wish Hulk was on that list!).

While Whedon has been rumored for this job for awhile, and is high on the fanboy wish-list. He’s an interesting choice: despite his writing/producing TV series resume, and genius writing skills, he has only directed one feature in his career — 2005’s Serenity. He has, on the other hand, directed many television episodes, including 22 episodes of Buffy, 7 episodes of Angel, 3 episodes of Firefly, 3 episodes of Dollhouse, and even episodes of both The Office and Glee. Oh, and let us not forget Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

Marvel Studios has apparently realized this faithful following and how much Whedon is just a geek and fanboy himself. According to Deadline Hollywood, the maker of epic comic book movies is in final negotiations with Whedon to direct The Avengers, which is the film that will bring all of these massive characters and storylines into one film.

After Iron Man 2, Marvel has three pictures left on a distribution deal with Paramount before it moves to Disney, and the studio has been churning them out. Iron Man 2 gets released in May, Captain America will begin shooting this summer in Europe, Thor is in production, and Marvel Studios just set Pete Sollett to direct Runaways, based on the comic book series created by Lost writer Brian K. Vaughan. Whedon has written installments of the latter, so he knows how to make those superheros fly. Marvel has considered all of the individual superhero movies to be an intro to The Avengers, so the wanna-see on this one will be huge. The film will be released in the first weekend of May, 2012.