I’m not seeing it. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER grossed plenty enough money to justify a Nick-Fury-tastic sequel like CAPTAIN AMERICA II: THE AVENGERS, at which point you could maybe say “Yeah, but what if moviegoers think this is more like a sequel to THOR, with a sledgehammer-wielding Chris Hemsworth squaring off against Tom Hiddleston’s smirking Loki with Stellan Skarsgard mumbling about physics in the background” – except that’d be a good thing, since THOR had a bigger gross to more strongly justify a sequel, at which point you could say “Sure, but what if we lose that market to folks who think it’s just an IRON MAN sequel with Robert Downey Jr exchanging witty banter with Gwyneth Paltrow in between watching a gun-toting Scarlett Johansson in black leather,” except IRON MAN 3 would’ve been an even surer thing, no?
Inception is basically a high-concept action movie, starring one of the biggest stars in Hollywood (DiCaprio), and several other fairly big stars (Caine, Gordan-Levitt, Page, Murphy). This is generally not Whedon’s milieu. Inception doesn’t get made if it stars that guy from Castle, Neil Patrick Harris, and some of the people from Buffy. Even so, you forgot that Nolan only got to make this after the second successful Batman movie he made, among his many other successful movie projects. Joss Whedon has 1 hit. It was a big one, but his role in that success if limed at best. Nolan’s Batman was very different from the previous iterations. Whedon’s Ironman, Thor, etc. characters are essentially the same. That’s not to take credit from him, but their contributions are not equivalent in my mind.
I am sure it is. That said, we will see what happens soon enough. I predict that he won’t get a blank slate to do whatever he wants because people are not stupid.
Yes, he got to make another big budget action movie starring a bunch of known, traditionally bankable stars. I am sure Whedon will have the opportunity to do the same. What I doubt is that someone will give him $100 million to write a wacky space western movie starring Eliza Dushku.
How is John Carter comparable to The Avengers? The latter was the build up of several successful movies already released. After releasing two Ironman movies, a Thor movie, the Hulk, and Captain America, I don’t think that The Avengers would not make money, even if it were a huge turd. Take a look at this box office mojo article:
No mention of Whedon, except tangentially when they discuss the film’s positive ratings. Box Office Mojo had projected the film would pull in $172.5 million on its opening weekend. A $30 million difference is fairly big, but the movie was projected to break records.
Another reason why Whedon will not get as much credit is that the original script was written by someone else. While it’s clear that his voice is in the final product, I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s a Whedon movie given that the characters and original script were not his creation.
If you’ve decided beforehand that you won’t give Whedon any credit for the film, it’s easy to make up whatever rationale you want to serve that.
In any case, you’re wrong about the script:
[
Hard to know how much strong reviews and appreciative word-of-mouth contributed to the movie’s success, but however much it was, it probably wouldn’t have been there if the movie had been “a huge turd”.
Dear Mr. Whedon,
Please resurrect Alien Nation.
Signed,
The World
I think the film was always likely to make 300-350 in the US. However it looks likely to make a lot more, probably more than 500. I think Whedon can legitimately claim the credit for the difference. The earlier movies in this series haven’t all been mega-hits. The best has been Iron Man with about 320. The Thor, Hulk and Captain America films have all made less than 200 in the US. The Avengers dilutes the role of the most popular superhero in the series and adds in a several less popular superheroes. This was certainly not an automatic formula for a smash hit. It could have been an incoherent mess with too many protagonists and fizzled out at the box office with around 200-250.
Furthermore aside from the boxoffice the enthusiasm for this movies is off the charts. It ranks 29 in the top movies list in IMDB. The only superhero movie which ranks higher is the Dark Knight which is also highest earning superhero movie ever. Actually that provides another good example of what we are talking about. After proving himself with the two Batman films especially the second one, Nolan was given 160 million dollars to make the much more personal Inception.
Why do you think I have decided beforehand to not give him any credit? If anything, it’s the bias of Whedon fans that is most at display here. I have said several times I have nothing against the guy, but the reasons I doubt he will be given a blank check to do whatever he wants are as follows:
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I can’t think of anyone who has ever had a blank check to do things that are not considered to be commercially viable regardless of their previous success.
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This list includes people like James Cameron, and George Lucas. Two people who have a longer, and more lucrative track record than Whedon, or most anyone else for that matter.
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Even superstars like Will Ferrell can’t get a blank check to make a sequel of a successful movie starring other big stars.
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Producers like Tyler Perry, who like Whedon has a niche audience, cannot get a blank check for his projects.
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Most of Whedon’s work doesn’t have known, bankable stars in it.
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Most of Whedon’s work is not commercially successful. His most successful show had mediocre ratings while on TV. While it has found success in syndication and with dvds, it didn’t find an audience on TV.
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The Avengers was projected to break records, meaning that Whedon’s impact was likely not integral to the film’s success.
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AFAICT, most of the other people involved in similar big budget action movies have not been afforded the opportunities that people think Whedon will.
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Well-reviewed, and commercially successful movies of this type are not particularly rare nowadays.
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IMO, very few people saw the movie specifically because of Joss Whedon’s involvement.
None of the above is a reflection on him, or his talent (or lack thereof). As I said before, people seem to love the guy, and ultimately I think art, as a whole, is better off when you have people who inspire that kind of loyalty involved. But, let’s try to temper expectations here.
As mentioned above, Tyler Perry likely can not get a blank check from a studio. This is a guy, regardless of how you feel about how talented he is, is 10x more commercially successful than Joss Whedon. If you were a studio exec, would you give Perry a blank check? If not, why do you think they would give Whedon one? Just because you like him?
He also [URL=“http://www.hitfix.com/articles/joss-whedon-pans-zak-penns-original-avengers-screenplay”]said](http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/joss-whedon-reveals-the-avengers-started-out-with-a-script-by-zak-penn-which-he-tossed-out-rewrote-20120502#) there was no script, then when he was called out on the lie by a reporter, he said he didn’t use it. I have no idea where the truth lies. The other guy says he wasn’t involved in the latter creative process, so I will grant that Whedon may be telling the truth now. But, I stand by the point that it’s much harder do something from scratch than to have a basic mold of fully realized characters, and a script regardless of whether you use it.
Ummm, they were both major motion pictures with huge marketing efforts by Disney to back them? One worked, one didn’t.
It is easy to argue the inevitability of success, after the success. Hindsight is always 20/20. A crappy script and wooden directing can kill a move quite easily. Didn’t happen with the Avengers, and what studio head wants to bet his career that Wheedon had nothing to do with it.
That’s kind of silly. Avengers had basically 5 (eta: I guess 4) other movies as part of the “marketing”. Also, it’s generally agreed that JC failed in the marketing department, so if anything we could then attribute Avengers’ success to marketing rather than Whedon.
Again, you can decide as a matter of faith that Whedon was along for the ride here, but that simply isn’t true. If you’ve seen the film and are familiar with his work, you certainly would feel his hand.
Each of those line items is utterly pointless. No one is saying that Whedon will have the ability to get 200 million dollars to film snow melting. They are arguing that he will have a much, much greater ability to get films he wants to make made.
No, but Tyler Perry makes drivel. He’s simply not a very talented person. At some point, studios want well crafted films, if only for bragging rights.
And if you can have well-crafted, money-making films this is even better.
You consider that a lie? If you’re an architect and are hired to redo plans that are, in your opinion horrible, you’d say that when you arrived the plans were already set?
Calling that a lie is absurd.
So, you’ll grant that since everyone is in agreement, Whedon might be telling the truth? Dude, you obviously aren’t objective here.
Yeah, stand by that point. You’re still wrong about the script.
Resurrect Alien Nation, hell yes.
Whedon? Hell no.
Box office mojo predicted $175 million. They even commented that that prediction might be low if theaters could squeeze in more viewings. Given that the Hunger Games might have gotten those numbers if it had been 3d, I don’t think they were that far off. I know the tickets I bought for the Avengers (IMAX 3D) were $18.50/each. That adds up.
I think he can claim credit for having made a good movie. I don’t think his name alone made them much more money, nor do I think his involvement is what made the movie good.
It very well could have. It was pretty good in that regard all things considered. I think he deserves enormous credit for that. But I think studios have gotten much smarter about how to maximize the haul of movies like this. Those strategies, I think, are more responsible than the individual film makers.
Inception was basically an action movie, and it starred Leonardo DiCaprio. I am sure Whedon, after doing another successful action movie can get a chance to do a smarter, high-concept action movie.
I have seen most of his work, and I have admitted as much in (several) earlier posts.
And I would argue that is likely not going to happen if the movie, when viewed independently, is something a studio thinks will not make money. Whedon’s stuff is usually somewhat esoteric, and not particularly commercially successful. Those facts don’t change because he did a successful movie outside of his typical stuff. If he plans to do what he seems to like doing, it’s not gonna be much easier getting it made. Either way, I am sure in the next year or two, we will see who is right and who is wrong.
Did you read the article about Anchorman 2? Every movie the director, Adam McKay, has made had grossed over $100mm. He has, AFAIK, never lost money on a movie. And yet, the studio wouldn’t give him $60mm to do a SEQUEL to a successful movie. What makes you think Whedon’s circumstances are different?
I think most studios do not care very much how well-regarded their films are if they are making money (see: the vast majority of shit they greenlight). Even so, you can hate Perry all you want, but I would bet he has far more fans, and far more loyal fans than Whedon does. I don’t care for him particularly, but the there is no accounting for tastes.
Nonsense. It’s a lie for a number of reasons. One, it isn’t the true. Two, even if Whedon was trying to be spare his feelings, it makes no sense to do that because it was well known that a script was already out there. Third, Whedon had to be aware of the fact that Penn was going to get screenwriting credit, so saying that there was no script, and that Penn didn’t participate during the movie’s filming is foolish. So by every definition it was a lie, and particularly transparent one that only serves to build up Whedon.
Everyone is not in agreement. Penn says he wasn’t involved in the latter process. He doesn’t talk much at all about if his script is similar to what is on the screen at all. Even if we grant that the dialogue, which sounds like Whedon’s, was not Penn’s, the basic storyline may be the same. I don’t know where the truth is and I don’t think because Whedon says he rewrote everything means that there wasn’t anything salvageable from the previous work done with the movie. Even so, if you really want to get hung up on that one point, fine. It’s really not integral to the larger argument here.
Explain to me how it’s silly. I’m not getting the silly part. Avengers could just as easily, and perhaps very easily, been judged to be an unwatchable mishmash.
The fact that the characters all already existed is more to Whedon’s credit, not less. His monumental task was to somehow find a way to bring all of these established characters together, and make them all work together without any of them getting overshadowed. That would have been a lot easier (still not easy, but easier) if he’d had a blank slate, and been able, for instance, to make Stark less of an asshole. Or even just casting actors based on their chemistry together. But with the pre-existing movies, he had to make the characters work together while still staying consistent to their existing characterizations (including characterizations of “doesn’t work well with others”). If that’s not a mark of an excellent director, I don’t know what is.
The general public who goes to see the Avengers may have no idea who Joss Wheden is, but people who make decisions on getting movies made now do. My point all along in this thread is (and admittedly I have been some what facetious on how I have been wording it) is that if there was anything Joss had been trying to get green lit and couldn’t, he will get it green lit now. That’s just how Hollywood works. Of course there will still be budgets and compromises etc. but he can write his own ticket right now and I am looking forward to what it is.
Re: the drama over Zak Penn’s credit - if you inherited a crap project, and said crap had someone’s name all over it, would you up and say “Yeah, I got a piece of crap from Zak Penn so I started over from scratch”, or would you simply say “I started from scratch”?
It seems to me Whedon tried to take the gracious route and keep Penn’s name out of it, but when pushed, was brutally honest. If any of Penn’s earlier work is any indication (from the lask Hulk on back to the craptastic college comedy PCU, and a bunch of mediocrity in between), I can imagine an Avengers script from him being pedestrian at best, and complete drivel at worst.
I’m not speaking to how watchable the movies are, merely to your statement that they were “both major motion pictures with huge marketing efforts by Disney to back them”. I am saying Avengers had lots more publicity, being a converging sequel of 3 different movies, and the marketing campaign for John Carter was horribly done. As far as opening weekend goes, Avengers had a huge advantage.
Nitpick: 4 (Hulk, Iron Man 2, Captain America, Thor)