We sort of hate April Fool’s Day here, at least the way it plays out on movie sites — people take a combination of actors, director and properties that are in no way plausible, throw them together, and watch as no one either falls for them, or laughs. Werner Herzog is directing Andy Samberg in a remake of “It’s A Wonderful Life?” Hilarious! (While we’re scrooging about this, though, it should be noted that Film School Rejects have the exception to the rule, a genuinely great, original joke, up today – props to them).
IESB have run a bunch of them today, but they’ve also got a big bit of news that they claim is above board — accompanied by multiple exclamation marks, so you know they’re serious… Louis Letterier announced a few weeks back that he believed he was “at the bottom” of a shortlist to direct Marvel’s team-up movie “The Avengers,” and that he was lobbying hard for the gig. Having seen “Clash of the Titans” (review coming shortly), we’re pretty sure that the glorified second unit director’s chances have dropped considerably, but apparently another geek-friendly name is on the list; Joss Whedon, the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Serenity.”
Although the site is a little patchy on their scoops, they were the first to report on the indefinite delay of Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 4,” and this report apparently comes from the same source. Whedon has played in the superhero sandbox before, writing a draft of Bryan Singer’s “X-Men,” and was attached to write and direct “Wonder Woman” for Warner Bros for some time, as well as writing comic books for Marvel. His form’s been a little patchy of late — “Dollhouse,” while intriguing in places, is the least of his television works; basing a show around a woman with multiple personalities is tricky when you cast Eliza Dushku in the lead, an actress who doesn’t even appear to have one.
Nevertheless, when he is on form, Whedon’s one of the best writers in his sphere, and his feature directorial debut “Serenity” showed an admirable flair for juggling a large cast, leavened with wit and excellent action sequences, and some surprisingly high stakes. He doesn’t always play ball with studios, however, leaving “Wonder Woman” after Joel Silver found his script a little esoteric, and Marvel haven’t shown themselves to be particularly auteur-friendly, Kenneth Branagh aside. It could also be argued that Whedon’s too unproven to handle such a vital property for the studio — by the time it’s released, they’ll have spent five years, and five movies, building towards “The Avengers,” and may be after a safer pair of hands than someone whose only feature directing experience comes from an underperforming big screen version of his own flop TV show.
Ultimately, if Whedon is on the list, it’s probably a large list, and we’d be very surprised if Marvel made a decision before they’d seen some dailies from both “Thor” and “Captain America,” as we imagine that both Branagh and Joe Johnston are also on the list, if only by default. Marvel also have a certain history of leaking names to gauge fanboy reaction (which, knowing Whedon’s acolytes, will be pretty strong). Nevertheless, they could do a lot worse than him. We just hope that the fans are prepared when Whedon pulls his trademark move, and kills off Thor suddenly and without warning at the end of the second act…