SDCC 2010: Joss Whedon Experience

He started by asking the audience if they’ve heard he going to direct this “intimate little art film” called The Avengers. Of course, he made it official the night before at the panel with Abrams.

He also talked about the final arc in the Dark Horse Buffy season eight series which starts in September. He asked Scott Allie to help him with the climax. “The two of us sat in a room for a couple of days,” he said, “just mapping out everything, making sure everything was working, and everything was going to pay off the way we wanted it to emotionally.”

As for the Big Movie, that’s still in the planning stages, but he has met with the actors who will play the icon roles from Iron Man to Captain America. “They’re so invested and insightful, and I come away from these meetings with more information about the characters,” he says, “More ideas about how they’ll interact, and the fact I’m going to have all these people in a room just hating each other…for a while, as characters. He did mention that he’ll show the Avengers as “family”, which is a common theme among past Whedon shows. He admits he’s worked with some of the best ensembles around, and the Avengers could be another one.

He also discussed things like relying on long, uncut takes and how they can be stunts. He used one in Serenity in the beginning, to establish the movie, the crew and the fact the story was in the here and now…in the ‘verse,that is

He also answered a question about whether evil acts are necessary for a greater good. Joss used he example of Angel killing Drogan, or Giles killing Ben in Buffy season 5 (Ben was also Glory, the evil demi-goddess after Dawn). “What’s interesting to me,” he says, “is when people we love get to a place where they have to do something we don’t love.” That’s why he prefers his heroes not to be so clean-cut. That’s also a common theme.

He also admitted one thing that isn’t so surprising: “Is anybody surprised that I kind of relate to villains more than heroes?” He said that when he was asked why he made Dr. Horrible. He said he created that character because he felt like that guy.

There was also a question about why Boyd, the trustworthy handler from Dollhouse, was really the Big Bad of the second season. They still had to cover that apocalypse from the unaired final episode, “Epitaph One.” So, Joss explained that he thought “I think we can pull this one ace out of our sleeve and actually make people’s jaws hit the floor, and justify it, and it would just be so much fun.”

There was also discussion about whether there would be a Rock Band version of Dr. Horrible,and some of Joss’ comic book influences. hen, this man asked a question…