$150+ million, are you kidding? start higher $250+

Great, so I guess all the fight scenes will involve Whedon's lame style of what he thinks is "kickboxing" and all the characters will have daddy issues. And I love how Whedonites call Toy Story a Whedon film even though he was one of EIGHT writers on it.

I don't know what scares me more, Whedon directing AVENGERS or Whedon possibly writing AVENGERS. I'm so serious when I say this really kills my excitement for the movie.

Wasn't he one of the platoon of uncredited writers on the 1st X-Men movie?
Whatever- I thought Serenity was the tits. Liked it better than Firefly. and here's a dirty little secret about these genre movies- more often than not the credited director has little to do with the action scenes.

Yeah man im painfully worried at the guy who wrote one of the best x men runs in years and has shown time and time again that hes a great writer.
I know firefly isnt for everyone but you cant say that the show isnt full of some the wittiest and sharpest writing in genre TV.
I cant wait to see what he can do with it.
And look at what Rami brought to spider man ffs. What did he have on his C.V post spider man, some fantastic yet trashy horror one fantastic yet hardly seen thriller and some shit baseball movie and yet he nailed spiderman, nailed him hard in the ass.
And whedon himself will also be another man nailing dudes in capes in the ass. In a good way

To be fair, the only movie that Whedon had (more or less) creative control over was Serenity. Pointing to Alien Resurrection as a reason to worry about Whedon as a director is as silly as pointing Toy Story as a reason to NOT worry about him as a director.

Devin;

Implying Joss Whedon isn't a better choice for ANYTHING compared to Bill Condon.

Further implying that Summit can actually land any worthwhile directors for their shit fests as opposed to Marvel being able to get the very best of the bargain bin.

Regardless of how much (even if not at all) they are in the movie, how cool would it be to have Ed Norton, RDJ and Chris Evans in Avengers movie.

hey morons

go read whedons run on astonishing and then talk about daddy issues.

fact is he gets the material, way more than anyone over at mavel and he's 10x better than favereau

You morons know writing a comic book isn't the same as directing a movie, right?

so, at least we already know what the climax will be: the avengers will be overrun by some zombieish (vampires, reavers, demons, actives, whatever) horde.

but it will probably be decent until that point.

Hurm

speed

its funny to me that chris evans will be leading a team comprised of robert downey jr and ed norton…evans will make a GREAT capt america, but i cant see him leading againt those acting giants

The things about Serenity that worked (i.e., character interactions and the action) really worked well are all Whedon needs to bring to this. With a script already written, and no need to compress the story the way he had to for Serenity, so the things that didn't work shouldn't be a factor here. Chris Evans, however, will be hugely outclassed by the talent around him.

Whedon is responsible for the single greatest line in movie history.
"Do you know what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning? Same thing that happens to everything else." That right there should prove he's ready for the Avengers.

I think it could work. A lot depends on how Captain America and Thor do. And those movies have directors with spotty track records.

To be fair number 16, he wrote the line, but he can't control how it is read by the actors.

I think we're witnessing the birth of Devin's newest hate crusade! Get ready for an endless stream of negative conjecture and pathetic armchair quarterbacking for the next 2 years.

I'm no Devin supporter but I agree with him on this. And I like everything Whedon has done. I just don't see the directorial ability to tackle what should be the greatest super hero action scenes of all time.

This is obviously about money. He is known to be able to pull off genre for cheap. It helps that he knows comics and I am hopeful. Favreau had not done a big budget action picture before either, so we will see…

You guys are being bitches…we got someone with loads of Geek cred helming an avengers movie. Be happy for that. Nothing can please you fat fucks.

I wonder how you would have reacted if Ratner, or McG got their paws on this.

As long as he gets a terrific action team on board with action choreography, pre-viz, 2nd unit director, etc. can't be any better or worse than any other Marvel-produced flick these days.

At least it's not film cancer Michael Bay

I'm astonished that people are whining about this. There are lat least 100 active directors that would have been worse.

So, writing a comic book means you can direct a movie, right? That's why The Spirit was so great, right? Tell us, Whedonites, how is directing a movie anything like writing a comic book?

Is Wheedon in a better or worse position to have acquired the skills to direct a $150M+ movie than Kenneth Branagh?

I've never seen Buffy show or Firefly, but everybody I know who has watched them tells me they are great, and the guy seems to be a genre fan, so it sounds like a pretty good decision to me. Could be a lot worse. You could be getting Ratnered with this movie after all.

No. No! NOOOO!!!!!!

Whedon DID an uncredited rewrite/polish for the first X-Men, and anyone that know's Whedon's work can tell. Good choice, Marvel.

#21 has it right. A geek cred guy who really cares about the movie gets the chair and you all whine because you don't like buffy or firefly. This is the same shit you fags pulled when Favreau was selected to direct Iron Man. "hes an indy film director! Made was shit!"
Well he made a kick ass Iron Man movie, so why don't we give Joss a chance.

I'll pay to see how this turns out.

Devin put the anti-Whedon slant in his article so the Devin fan boys are just following suit.

He should do good with this project. As #31 says, i'll happily pay to see how it turns out.

So when this bombs is Joss Whedon going to blame everyone else like he does for every other project he does that turns out horribly?

This is the first bit of news/chat that even has me remotely interested in seeing an avengers movie. Go Whedon.

Favreau wasnt the most logical choice to direct IM, but look at what a good job he did.
I have hope for Whedon. He knows his comics he knows how to direct ensembles. He will have marvel and Favreau and Norton and RDJ there to help…

I like Evans as Capt. to say that he can't lead RDJ or Norton, well no, but Capt. Never really did, they worked together to get the job done. Esp. Stark and Capt. between them two its less about leading/following and more about working together to succeed.

whoa, whoa… #32 – there are Devin fanboys? all I ever see is Devin bile.

I can't say I've ever seen anything Whedon did. I watched half an episode of Buffy and fall asleep.

I do have this nagging feeling that this whole enterprise is completely cursed – and I say this as someone who loved Iron Man (save the third act) and The Incredible Hulk (felt like I was a kid reading a hulk comic again).

Edward Norton still doing the Hulk?

I honestly don't get the thought process behind people making the "oh shit, he's going to turn Avengers into Buffy!" statements. Were you worried Nolan was going to make Batman backwards or that Singer was going to reveal Prof. X was Keyser Soze at the end of X-Men? I think Whedon is enough of a professional to take on a film with existing source material on its own terms and try to do the best job possible. Marvel seems to be running a pretty tight ship, I doubt they're just handing over a lynch pin in their franchises blindly and just seeing what kind of movie Joss Whedon comes up with.

Uwe Boll has got my vote.

Didn't jeunet direct alien resurrection? Whedon did what, write it?

Ha! Excellent. SO excellent. Whedon is tops. The guy can produce fantastic looking stuff when he's on a shoe string and when he gets a budget he creates gold. So very excellent.

Serenity wasn't that bad. It was the dialogue during the action scenes that was cringe worthy. That scene where they were crashing for some reason or another… The dialogue between the captain and the pilot is an exchange that would make George Lucas feel ashamed.

@Dante Diablo

Exactly. You can easily say name one really big hit that Kenneth Branaghs had?

Before Iron Man came out who would have picked Jon Favreau as the director of a big tentpole summer blockbuster? Or even Chris Nolan? Hell, who thought that the guy behind Bad Taste & Brain Dead would bring us the defining fantasy epic of the current generation?!

I think that on the surface Whedon is a more obvious choice as a first time blockbuster director than the two named above. I really liked Serenity and what he accomplished on a $35m budget was superb in terms of story, characters and action.

Frankly I'm more worried about Joe Johnstone being the director of Captain America. Rocketeer aside, to me everything else he's done has been decidedly middle of the road.

Didn't he do a rewrite on Speed? Fucking great flick (shame about the train surfing at the end).

As both a comic fan and whedon liker(not love, I dig firefly and serenity, but his buffy/angel universe dragged on for ages)
and think the real reason he got this is he's good with a group dynamic, meaning it's hard for a lot of directors to give an equal/appropriate amount of focus on a group of characters, but Whedon's entire career is based on groups of characters.(Buffy,Firefly,Astonishing Xmen, his runaways arc) he has a good knack for giving each character a good bit of time to stretch out, which would be great for the avengers especially if they throw some b-listers in the mix.

Others can beat off to Ironman (exactly one whole half of that movie sucked), I think this is a great choice. Hope Whedon gets it the gig.

Who gives a damn about bold choices in A list arty directors to tackle genre propererties? Yeah, it sounds great, but odds are you'll get Ang Lee's The Hulk or Aranofsky's auto-junkyard Batman. Whedon is more than familiar with working with large casts, directing, and writing comics. Even though I'm no huge fan of the man, sounds like a decent fit to me.

This will help make up for hiring that hack Joe Johnston.

Whedon will knock this out of the park. The man has done nothing but produce quality entertainment. Wait… really? Directing this film is "very, very different"? Genius. So was Favreau making a fucking movie about an Elf then RDJ in a robot suit. Stay open-minded everyone.

A Whedon film that did well? Speed, Toy Story, X-Men. No, sorry, you don't get to just eliminate "Toy Story" because you want to prove a point that isn't supported by the evidence. A Whedon film that was good? Toy Story, X-Men, the extended cut of Waterworld. Serenity and Titan A.E. were decent too.

This is a baffling attitude of Devin's – really. Whedon has more than proven himself. He can pull it off. If one thing Marvel studios seem to be good at, it's choosing directors. That being said, I'm surprised more people aren't worried about C.A. than this. Rocketeer is the closest thing he's done, and it's half a step away from The Shadow.

I'm no Whedon fanboy, but the guy writes snappy dialogue, can handle an ensemble cast and knows the material. And I agree with the poster(s) who said most everyone around thought Favreau would fuck up Iron Man – and he hit it out of the park. And again, Dev – although your tone is lighter here regarding Whedon's work, I wish you'd quit equating success with quality ("find me a Whedon film that did well…"). "Serenity" didn't do boffo box office? Neither did "The Hurt Locker."

This is a good choice. Nuff said.
He'll deliver.
And quit yer pre-emptive butching, folks. Frame #1 hasn't even been shot yet, yet EVERYBODY has already divided into their little camps. Could be great, could be terrible. I have no idea – and neither do you (Devin included).

Speed, Toy Story, Twister, and X-Men are NOT Joss Whedon films. Just because he wrote a page or two does not make those movies HIS films. Sorry, nerds, Whedon has not proven himself.

Ok there is seriously no point mentioning anything in Whedon's career besides Serenity, Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog and I guess his tv series'. If he gets the gig he'll be directing, not writing. Honestly I'm excited to see what he'll do with it because I'm a big fan but I can't say whether or not it'll be good because he's never done anything like this before. He's good with an ensemble cast and he's got a lot of love for the material. You can point to bad Whedon scripts all you want but that's not what he's going to be doing. Fact is we can't know one way or another whether it'll be good or bad so there's no point getting all pissy whatever side you're on.

If I'm overly critical of Joss Whedon at every chance I get, his rabid fan base will rush to my articles just to get themselves angry! Not to mention the anti-fanboy contingent who hate anything he does… Faraciavelli strikes again! Bwahaha!