Whither Whedon?

One of the problems of our celebrity-obsessed culture is that we, the common people, feel some sort of connection to famous people.  We follow them on twitter, visit their Facebook page, and generally think of them as just another buddy, albeit one that never actually sends a personal e-mail.

I try to avoid this delusion, mostly because I am, you know, sane.  But there is one celebrity I feel a connection to, and that’s Joss Whedon.  And I don’t think I’m alone; Whedon’s ability to connect with his fan base was unique among writer-directors.  Of course, the stronger the connection, the stronger the backlash when something severs that connection.

There was a huge fallout when it came to light that Whedon had been unfaithful to his wife with women (unnamed, as far as I know, but then I’ not exactly in the loop) that he had worked with.  As a result the fan site Whedonesque shut down, and his reputation took a hit.  There was a lot of confusion over whether he should be included in the #metoo movement, or questioning his feminist credentials, but there never was any implication that he “Harvey Weinsteined” any women.  To quote the Steve Martin comedy L.A. Story, he had just been “a big dumb male.”

All that aside, I am concerned about his creative output. Of course he had his biggest success with the 2012 release of The Avengers, with a gross of $623.4 million.  In 2013 he released his low budget version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, which may have only grossed $4.3 million but cost next to nothing to make and had an impressive Metacritic score of 78.  A big-budget blockbuster and a critically acclaimed, small budget Shakespearean adaptation; not a bad year.

Since then Whedon’s output hasn’t quite matched those highs.  His follow-up to The Avengers, The Age of Ultron, grossed a mere $459 million and had a middling Metacritic score of 66.  I’ve gone back over Whedon’s oeuvre and frankly I think it is clearly the worst thing he’s ever written/directed.  The script feels rushed, like Marvel wanted to get the sequel out as soon as possible because the franchise might die if the next installment wasn’t in theaters within three years (okay, maybe they had a point). 

Since Ultron, he did some script doctoring on DC’s Justice League (it helped some, but not enough).  He had tried to get a big screen version of Wonder Woman made for years to no avail, which would have helped his feminist street cred, only to see the film get made by a woman director.  He had been linked to the next best thing to a Wonder Woman film, a big-screen version of Batgirl, but reports are that that's off as well.

His imprimatur is still around, as a creator of the TV show Agents of SHIELD (which I stopped watching a couple of years ago) and other Marvel-centric entertainments.  But the director of two of the 13 biggest grossing films of all time (okay, Black Panther will bump Age of Ultron Ultron down to 14 next week) hasn’t directed anything since Ultron, three years ago.

Where does Whedon go?  Back to television?  Frankly that seems to be a medium more suited to his skills at witty dialog, plot twists and character development.  Or would that be seen as slumming after directing two films that together grossed over a billion dollars? Given we now live in the era of beloved TV show reboots, would a “reimagining” of Firefly be considered blasphemy?

Sometimes creative types can find freedom to be intimidating.  It’s easier to take risks when you know you have to succeed or be jobless.  Once you have the freedom to do whatever you want, you might suddenly find you don’t know what you want (after The Avengers huge opening weekend Whedon sent out a message that finally he’d be able to do that reboot of Air Bud the world had been waiting for).

Between 1939 and 1944 Preston Sturges produced six of the most brilliant comedies ever filmed (The Great McGinty won an Oscar for best screenplay; four of the five others made the AFI list of top 100 comedies).  When he was finally given the freedom by the studio to make his lifelong dream, he made a biopic about the invention of anesthesia called The Great Moment.  His career never recovered. 

I hope Joss Whedon can find his next project and have better success recovering from his career setbacks of the past few years.