While
at the TCA Press Tour, executive producer Joss Whedon talked about the upcoming
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. At the tour Whedon talked about not having
superheroes every week, the possibility of having heroes from the films
appearing on the show, the scale of the show, tie ins with the movies, and much
more.
Question: Are you getting a lot of creative freedom
with this show?
JOSS
WHEDON: We’ve got trust, which is
different than freedom. My collaboration
with Marvel on the movie was pretty extraordinary and, for me, unprecedented. It wasn’t a question of them getting out of
the way. We really worked that story
together. ABC and Marvel have been very
active in making sure the show is what they want for their company and their
network and their audiences and, at the same time, they’re very supportive of
the vision that we first laid out to them.
The most important thing is that we all are trying to make the same
show. It’s not really about “Oh, we’re
past them, and we don’t want have to deal with them.” We’re all on the same page, which has occasionally
not happened for me.
Is
it weird or refreshing to be part of a TV show where you’re not the primary
showrunner?
WHEDON: It is weirdly refreshing. It was very important to me to get [Jed and
Maurissa]. When we did Dr. Horrible, and
even when we worked on Dollhouse, we very much had that finishing each other’s
sentences thing. And not just Jed
[Whedon], but Maurissa [Tancharoen], as well.
I’m reading every script and every story, and giving notes and
rewrites. I’m doing all of the stuff,
but I just can’t be in the room, every day.
Knowing that I have a group who’s going to push it forward and share
this hard to convey idea of exactly how I want the show to feel, is a great
relief. It’s why you do television. You build these families. You find people like Jed, Drew Goddard and
Tim Minear, who are going to take your vision and not just further it, but
enhance it in ways you couldn’t see coming.
WHEDON: There’s not going to be some new hero, every
week. There could be a device. There could be a mystery. There are so many aspects to what’s happened,
since everybody in the world found out that there is a superhero team and there
were aliens that invaded New York, and we want to be able to change it up,
every week. We want to be able to deal
with every aspect – the spy stuff, the hero stuff, the heartfelt stuff, the
humor. We want to make sure that you get
something that feels a little bit different, so it’s not just turkey, every
day.
How
important is it for the members of this team to not be super-powered?
WHEDON: The thing that appealed to me about this
show, from the very beginning, is the idea of the people who don’t have the
superpowers, who didn’t get the hammer and who didn’t, get the super soldier
serum, and the idea that everybody matters. There’s very much a sense of, “Well, what
about the rest of us? How do we cope
with this?” And so, yeah, it was
important that our core team, while they are extraordinary and incredibly good
at what they do and ridiculously attractive, they don’t fall under the category
of super.
When
you filmed Coulson’s death scene in The Avengers, was that his death scene, or
did you have something percolating for the character, down the line?
WHEDON: I absolutely killed him. It was not percolating. Kevin Feige told me before I took the gig,
“You gotta kill Coulson.” And I understood why, but I said, “You’re taking the
rap because I get a lot of heat for that stuff.”
In
the pilot you allude to some things with Agent Coulson. Will that mystery unravel through the season?
WHEDON: No, we’re never going to mention it
again. Yes, we will be dealing with the
issue, obviously. That will be part of
the thread throughout the story.
What
do you say to people who suspect that Coulson is a life model decoy?
WHEDON: I don’t say anything ‘cause I’m not going to
confirm or deny anybody’s ideas. I’ve
heard a dozen ideas, or more than a dozen.
Somebody, at some point, is going to be right, but I’m never going to
say when that happens. I’m not even
going to blink.
Could
Samuel L. Jackson and Cobie Smulders make appearances on this show?
WHEDON: We’ve seen Cobie on the show. We would love to see her again. We would love to see Sam, too, but he’s a
movie star and a workaholic, so whether or not he’ll make time for us, I can’t
say yet. I hope so.
Are
you prepared to make calls to anyone from the films, to ask them to come on the
show?
WHEDON: I’m prepared, insomuch as I think it’s a
great idea for the show and a perfectly good idea for them. I’m not going to go begging, and I’m not
going to use up favors that I need for The Avengers 2. The DNA of the show is the show. Those guys would be a delightful bonus, but
we’re not building our arcs around them.
We’ll just see what happens.
WHEDON: Well, the good thing about the universe is
that they’re superstars in that universe, so if they showed up and they
overbalanced it slightly, it would actually make sense. That’s how people would react to them, in the
universe of the show. So, I don’t think
that’s a problem. But, I do think it’s a
problem, if you have them too regularly, and then people are just wondering,
“When do I get to see the movie star again?,” instead of concentrating on these
guys.
You’re
known for taking chances with form and structure. Are you hoping to do some of that with this
show, and is that something you can even do within the Marvel universe?
WHEDON: We are not out to pull stunts. We are not out to go, “This will be
black-and-white. This will be us having
a laugh.” It’s always going to come from
the show. Buffy lent itself to a musical
because it was so hyperbolically emotional and so over-the-top in its
mythos. None of my other shows really
have. But, there is an element of
absurdity in the Marvel universe that’s come from back when I was reading the
comics in the ‘70s, that is satirical and bizarre. The fact that we’ll be able to tap into that
will keep the show from feeling too self-important or dry. We definitely want to push our boundaries and
give people new stuff, but we’re not just looking for a cool angle. It’s always going to be built from the
characters and their stories.
How
often do you think you’ll be able to direct an episode?
WHEDON: I don’t think it’ll happen again for the next
couple of years because I’m getting behind another camera, in another
country. But, we have some directors
that we’ve worked with before, and that we trust very much. The producers are always on set. We’re very, very careful about making sure
that what we have in the script is what shows up on screen.
WHEDON: It doesn’t suck. I’m not going to lie. It’s pretty gratifying.
Did
you ever think, when you were a kid, that you’d be doing this?
WHEDON: Yeah, of course I did! It was that or get a job.
Making
the transition from trying to get people to watch your shows to having the
biggest movie, and now this highly anticipated show, what’s it been like, personally,
to go from that to this?
WHEDON: At the end of the day, I had to spend a lot
of time selling Much Ado. I want people
to see everything, and you can’t guarantee that they will just because a show
has hype. For me, my biggest concern is
that I’m looking at the next script, and the script after that, and the script
after that, and making sure that we keep our game up because, if people are
watching, I want to make sure that they get everything they can.
Will
there be any synergy between the show and the feature films?
WHEDON: There will be as much as we can allow. We’re still working that out. It’s a fluid process. The important thing is that it’s a fun
opportunity, but it’s not the reason behind the show. We don’t want just to be an Easter egg
farm. We want people to come back
because of [this cast], and not because of some connection to the movie
universe. This show has to work for
people who aren’t going to see those movies, and haven’t seen them before.
WHEDON: A lot of it comes from talking to the Marvel
movie people. We say, “Can we do
this? Will this help? Will this tie together? Will this somehow blunt them?” We don’t want to hurt the movies, at
all. With Extremis, we said, “This will
give us a ticking clock. This will be
useful for us.” And they were
excited. They said, “That’s great! It’ll build on mythology that we just
created, and people will get something out of that.” On other occasions they’ll be like, “Don’t
touch that. We need that for the movie.”
And I’d like to protect the movies, too, particularly the last one in Phase
Two. I hear it’s going to be wonderful!
What
is different about a show of this scale versus a motion picture?
WHEDON: At the end of the day, it’s people. Somebody said, “How are you going to do this
again? It was so big.” The question is never, “How big can it be?” The question is, “How small can it be and
still have people showing up and really caring?” Some of my favorite issues of comics, when I
was a kid, were issues where people just sat around talking, and the fight
wasn’t coming until the next issue. It
was getting into character, like that. I’m not really worried about the scale.
When
Much Ado turned into an indie phenomenon, what was your reaction?
WHEDON: We definitely made the movie thinking, “Maybe
we’re just going to show this to each other at parties,” but it was a movie
that came completely from passion. The
fact that other people responded to that passion, I’m surprised every time that
happens, and absolutely delighted. In
this case, I’m a little more surprised because black and white Shakespeare home
movies don’t usually get this kind of response.
But, I’m just grateful.
WHEDON: It pushes it.
S.H.I.E.L.D. took its spot, and that’s just the sad reality.
Do
you have the goal of getting back to TV and doing entirely your own thing, once
your time in the Marvel universe is done?
WHEDON: The goal is never about the medium. It’s always about the next story. It’s always about the thing I haven’t done
before. It’s about learning, or it’s
about becoming better, and it’s about whatever story grabs hold of me. Sometimes I don’t even know which medium is
best for that story, but I usually go, “Well, that’s a TV show. Well, that’s a movie.” I like not knowing what’s next. It’s all just making people care about
people. So, I have no idea what the next
one will be. I don’t have a particular
ambition in any medium. I just want to
keep telling stories. If somebody pays
me, that’s also good.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment