While I love a good April Fool’s Day prank (last year I convinced everybody that I was going to be on a reality show to run the Boston marathon on two weeks notice) I’m holding back today and playing it straight. IESB swears this isn’t a prank, either, so you’ll have to take a leap of faith and dive into the pool of trust. The rumor goes that Joss Whedon is on Marvel’s short list to direct the AVENGERS movie that Zak Penn is currently scripting. This is from the same source that let out the scoop of the SPIDER-MAN 4 reboot several months before official press.
Whedon has his throng of fans to be sure. Why, just yesterday, Air Dave817 and Kid_Zombie named him as their dream choice to take over the X-MEN movies. He’s obviously got a pedigree with Marvel, already, in case you forgot about ASTONISHING X-MEN and his run on RUNAWAYS. He was actually even a contributing screenwriter on the first X-MEN movie, though David “ Solid Snake” Hayter would end up getting all the credit. If he were to take the reigns, he’d embody a lot of qualities fans have been looking for at once. That is, he’d technically be a comics writer hopping fences and bringing more familiarity and faithfulness to the material with him, but he'd still have years of directing experience to qualify him.
The choice makes more sense to me the more I think about it. SERENITY was one of the few big genre movies I’ve seen that was able to handle 10 major characters without making anyone in the cast seem like they were just standing around to be there. Since that flick was one of my favorites the year it came out, I’ve been eager to see Whedon get another turn at features and with a studio actually getting behind him on it, this time. Like I said, were this deal to happen, it would fulfil a lot of fans’ desires.
But what do you think, oh space-western Comic Vine community? Would you want Mr. Whedon to take the Avengers to this new arena? Or is there somebody else you’d prefer? Perhaps Louis Letterier? Or Jon Favreau? Make your own short list of directors you want.
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this April - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.