Whedon pulls out of Wonder Woman project

[Atticus Chaos 0]

February 03 2007

 

SATIN TIGHTS NO LONGER. Joss will not be fighting for our rights after all.

 

You (hopefully) heard it here first: I'm no longer slated to make Wonder Woman. What? But how? My chest... so tight! Okay, stay calm and I'll explain as best I can. It's pretty complicated, so bear with me. I had a take on the film that, well, nobody liked. Hey, not that complicated.

 

Let me stress first that everybody at the studio and Silver Pictures were cool and professional. We just saw different movies, and at the price range this kind of movie hangs in, that's never gonna work. Non-sympatico. It happens all the time. I don't think any of us expected it to this time, but it did. Everybody knows how long I was taking, what a struggle that script was, and though I felt good about what I was coming up with, it was never gonna be a simple slam-dunk. I like to think it rolled around the rim a little bit, but others may have differing views.

 

The worst thing that can happen in this scenario is that the studio just keeps hammering out changes and the writer falls into a horrible limbo of development. These guys had the clarity and grace to skip that part. So I'm a free man.

 

Well, sorta. There is that "Goners" movie I can finally finish polishing, and plenty of other things in the hopper I've wanted to pursue. I'm as relieved as I am disappointed, and both of those things lead to drink, so that's a plus. Truly, you may be hearing some interesting things brewing in the coming months. But all potential jets therein will be visible.

 

But most importantly, I never have to answer THAT question again!!!! And you don't have to link to every rumor site! Finally and forever: I never had an actress picked out, or even a consistant front-runner. I didn't have time to waste on casting when I was so busy air-balling on the script. (No! Rim! There was rim!) That's the greatest relief of all. I can do interviews again!

 

Thanks for your time. You are the people who make the world go 'round. Or, no, science does that.

 

-j.

 

ps All right, it was Cobie Smulders. Sorry, Cobes.

 

http://whedonesque.com/comments/12385#more

 

 

It would be easy to blame WB for this, but by all accounts Joss is a bit of a control freak and has never been fond of compromising. Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long for problems to arise.

[Anakin Flair 0]

It's Wonder Woman. Who cares?

[Darthtiki 0]

It's Wonder Woman. Who cares?

 

The reason is because Joss Whedon is probably one of the few writers in Hollywood who can make a believable smart strong female hero that can sustain a franchise which Warners would like to build to market to primarily females and comic book loving men. JJ Abrams could have been mentioned circa 2003, but after the big shit Alias did in S3. Wonder Woman is a character that if done right could be a very big cash cow in both marketing and box office ala Batman, Spidey, and X-Men. If it's done wrong we have Catwoman 2.0.

[SuperJerk 0]

Whedon was never a fan of the character, so I'm not too disappointed. I'd rather see him write an X-Men movie.

[AndrewTS 0]

I firmly believe Whedon got the job because...

 

A) Some exec who never saw Buffy heard about the show 2nd hand from an intern, and said, "Oh, how about that Buffy guy?"

 

B) When Whedon was offered it, he took it pretty much as a joke, and figured he could do anything with it and still end up with a better movie than someone else would pump out. Then he realized he had no clue on how to make it work.

 

So, this is not shocking at all. IMO, Whedon had no idea how to make the movie not suck and has given up.

[Special K 0]

Well, the Wonder Woman movie is going to suck.

 

And Whedon is going to do... what?

 

It's a lose lose scenarion. Whedon is the one guy I could believe writing Wonder Woman, with a little kitsch, a little pathos, and a lot of kick ass.

 

Get Ready for an awful Brett Ratner action shitfest. People aren't going to buy into fucking Wonder Woman unless it has some charm. I see none of that forthcoming.

[Kurt Angle Mark 0]

Warner has bought a script from some unknown writers

 

The story is a time piece set during WWII

 

Someone at Latino Review has read the script and says it is really good

 

http://www.latinoreview.com/scriptreview.php?id=48

[AndrewTS 0]

Since it seems no one else is going to say it...

 

Whedon pulls out of Wonder Woman

 

lol

[2GOLD 0]

I'm sorry, but I am glad because I firmly believe Joss is one of the WORST film writers on the planet. The guy is a master when it's his characters on television, but he cannot write for the big screen at all.

 

Wonder Woman would have been horrible for a number of reasons: He didn't like the character, he would have wanted to kill most of the cast making it really depressing, his little inside jokes tend to fall really flat on the big screen (not sure why though) and his ideas for casting rumors were already making my head hurt badly. Let Joss go work on Goners, comics and his Buffy/Angel TV movies and keep him away from projects he doesn't know an ounce about.

 

Let WB destroy it so Joss doesn't get another stink burger on his writing resume to go along with Titan A.E, Alien Resurrection and Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

[AndrewTS 0]

I agree with 2GOLD, despite liking Buffy.

[2GOLD 0]

I learned a long time ago to get excited when he's writing for television and comics. I loved Buffy and Angel and Serenity for the couple of hours it managed to get on the air.

 

But his films...christ, it is damn near impossible to sit through them when they aren't his characters. And even Serenity was a little flat (the doctor brother LIVES?!?! God damn you Joss).

[Special K 0]

 

Just wanted to put that up, for no reason.

 

 

Seriously, there is no way on earth to market Wonder Woman. I do realize she's one of the biggest stars of DC comics, but it just doesn't translate.

[2GOLD 0]

The Invisible Jet would be hilarious on the big screen. And a lasso that makes you tell the truth. I mean seriously, these are horrible. For a strong woman figure, she had some of the stupidest crap on the planet. I'm shocked DC Comics didn't give her the broom of justice.

 

Wonder Woman would translate well in a Justice League movie as a supporting role character. Then you can enhance her positives while pretending the negatives that make her snicker worthy aren't there.

[Justice 0]

Yeah, I agree with the above. She's not as much a leading role person as much as a support person. Justice League was exactly the right format for her, because you could always get away from her when she was becoming too irritating.

 

Frankly, a better female movie would be something along the lines of Birds of Prey or something. I'm not sure there's a female DC character out there that is built for her own solo flick.

[BlackFlagg 0]

I love Joss, but he's so much better suited for television. He needs the time to stretch things out, trying to cram everything into 90 minutes-2 hours just doesn't work well with him.

[Special K 0]

Wonder Woman is great in DC Comics. She's more hardcore than Superman or Batman, but that;s in comics.

 

In a movie? It's just going to be kitsch. If anyone could pull it off, I think it would be Whedon. But it's not going to happen. It's going to suck.

[Atticus Chaos 0]

For everyone who says whedon is crap at writing films: he did an uncredited rewrite of the script for speed. Graham Yost, the credited writer, freely admits joss wrote 99% of the dialogue and even added in a few characters and made a few changes. That has to be in his favour surely?

[Special K 0]

Why wasn't speed funny, then? Whedon brings teh funny.

[Atticus Chaos 0]

Why wasn't speed funny, then? Whedon brings teh funny.

 

Speed had a pretty witty script I always thought.

 

Anything else that'll keep this elevator from falling?

 

Yeah. The basement.

[Guest CWMwasmurdered]

I thought "Serenity" was an excellent movie.

[SuperJerk 0]

Its hard to gage someone's track record for writing movies when the scripts he writes aren't the ones that actually get filmed 99% of the time.

 

The only movie I'm aware of that he actually wrote what showed up on the screen was Serenity, which was great until the ending.

[treble 0]

Why wasn't speed funny, then?

Yeah, well I'm taller.

[Special K 0]

No really, I haven't seen the movie in fraking forever. It's a good action movie. Don;t really think of it as a good movie though. I guess I can see some Joss lines. Mostly "basing it on sex"

 

Serenity is a fucking killer movie, and I wasn't a huge fan of Firefly.

[Craig Th 0]

Let WB destroy it so Joss doesn't get another stink burger on his writing resume to go along with Titan A.E, Alien Resurrection and Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

He didn't write Atlantis, just did the treatment.

 

And how about Toy Story? Yeah, that was a horrible movie too.

 

(the doctor brother LIVES?!?! God damn you Joss).

It was his sister, not brother. And you obviously didn't get the movie.

 

He is better at TV, but he'll never go back. He always said Buffy/Angel was a great time in his life, but he barely EVER slept. Especially the one year when Buffy/Firefly and Angel were on.

[2GOLD 0]

I HATE that. I DID get the movie, just some of the jokes fell flat. That "you just obviously didn't get the movie" when someone doesn't call it the greatest thing ever invented has always been the lamest excuse when there was nothing confusing about 'Serenity' that couldn't be understood.

 

I get it,

the Alliance created the Reavers after they tried to basically pacify the people living on Miranda. The alliance screwed up, tried to cover it and the Serenity crew gets fed up with it and decides it's time to fight back since they and everyone they ever MET are basically dead. Since they figured "well we are dead anyway, might as well take down the Alliance with us". Wash gets killed, which people should have saw coming since he was happy and married and that NEVER sits well for someone's life in the Whedonverse [Anya/Xander, Willow/Tara, Buffy/Angel, Wes/Winfred and many many more]. They are seconds from getting blown to bits after surviving the Reavers but thankfully the Operative saves them from death once he realizes it's over for him and basically he'll get the peaceful world he can't be apart of albeit for a short time.

There was nothing confusing about the film or the series, except if you hadn't seen Firefly it didn't do a very good job of explaining who exactly Rev [or Shephard] was. And yes, I flipped in the spoiler tag for the people who still haven't seen it.

 

'Serenity' wasn't a bad movie, it just felt flat at the end and missed some steps here and there. It's a fine film and I would have gladly went to see a sequel, but they were Joss characters which I've never had a problem with since he actually gives a damn about his characters on film and TV. Other people's characters, not so much. And I am a HUGE Joss television fan, absolutely huge.

 

As for the undead loser. He was a doctor, he was a brother, so he was doctor brother character. Course if there had been a sequel, he'd been killed or the lovely Jewel Staite would since they seemed happy. BIG no no, hopefully they hit a rough patch after the sex since killing Kaylee would be beyond tragic. I doubt he would have killed the Doc since he had to be the LEAST liked character in the series. So he'd have the Kennedy/Riley factor working for him to keep him safe and secure for all eternity. Kaylee...yeah, she'd be toast.

 

And I didn't forget Toy Story, but it's not a bad movie so why in the world would it be added to the bad film pile? He did a treatment, that's writing involved with the film and the film was horrible so he gets one of the shots. Even taking away that one, his track record with characters not his own isn't good.

[luke-o 0]

Seen as though theres a topic on Wheadon, ill chime in with my two cents.

 

Buffy - Enjoyed the first, second, third series. then lost intrest, i cant believe it went shit, then continued to go shit, and got even shitter by the time it finally ended.

 

Angel - Angel was about one thing, getting young girls to tune in and watch "hunky" David Boringaz on the screen flexing his pecks, acting badly. I hated the Angel character anyways, so for him to get his own show is mind boggoling.

 

Firefly - Excellent. Theres nothing else to say about it really. I just thought it was excellent. But im glad it got cancelled, it would have gotten shit if it carried on.

 

Serienity - The first time i saw it, i got told, "it was better than Star Wars" which isn't. Quite clearly, it isn't. I mean, really, better than Star Wars? Get fucked. So i didnt enjoy it. The second time i saw it i didnt get anything like that, i really enjoyed it.

[Anakin Flair 0]

Angel - Angel was about one thing, getting young girls to tune in and watch "hunky" David Boringaz on the screen flexing his pecks, acting badly. I hated the Angel character anyways, so for him to get his own show is mind boggoling.

 

 

Season 1- pretty bad. Season 2-got better, but still not quite there. Seasons 3 & 4- some of the best quality TV I have ever seen. Season 5 was too, for the most part.

[SuperJerk 0]

Buffy - Enjoyed the first, second, third series. then lost intrest, i cant believe it went shit, then continued to go shit, and got even shitter by the time it finally ended.

I honestly can't argue with this.

[2GOLD 0]

Buffy - Enjoyed the first, second, third series. then lost intrest, i cant believe it went shit, then continued to go shit, and got even shitter by the time it finally ended.

I honestly can't argue with this.

 

To defend the UPN seasons, you had a couple of good episodes there but most of the top ones ended up on WB. You did get the musical episode though, which was very fun and actually felt like it was going to give the series life. Then you had the mini-slayers come in and wipe all of that out. Course some contend the destruction of Buffy had more to do with Marti Noxon than Joss, since he was off focusing more on Angel and getting Firefly up and running. When your creator losing interest, you know you aren't in for a fun season.

 

I think the ultimate question is can you do a Justice League movie WITHOUT Batman and Superman? Obviously they have both received a relaunch and the WB isn't going to put all of those eggs in one basket for at least three or four films each characters. So you could be looking at more than a decade before JL would even get off the ground. So do you think it could be possible (and maybe the best move) to have Wonder Woman show up in a Superman movie or to take all the characters from JL who aren't in a movie and run with them on their own?

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

Buffy- Loved it.

 

Angel- Didn't like it that much until season 5. The final season was awesome though.

 

Firefly- Favorite show ever.

 

Serenity- Absolutely love it.