Joss Whedon is still stomping hard for his little independent film he made while editing The Avengers, Much Ado About Nothing. God Bless his heart. It will be interesting to see just how big his name has become and if having 'Whedon' on a movie poster will translate to a big box office haul for 'Much Ado,' a film Whedon made with close friends at his house over the course of 12 days. I can't imagine that cost more that $1M or $1.5M to make, probably less. Now imagine if that makes $30-$50M worldwide? But I digress, we're here for superhero talk. As always, the interviewer squeezed in a few Marvel Studios questions and superhero talk ensued. When asked about the lack of female superhero films, here's why Joss thinks that's a fact and why he hopes that will soon change. "Toymakers will tell you they won’t sell enough, and movie people will point to the two terrible superheroine movies that were made and say, You see? It can’t be done" said Joss on the dearth of franchise-carrying female superheroes in a genre that has absolutely dominated the box office over the course of the last decade. He continued, "It’s stupid, and I’m hoping The Hunger Games will lead to a paradigm shift. It’s frustrating to me that I don’t see anybody developing one of these movies. It actually pisses me off. My daughter watched The Avengers and was like, “My favorite characters were the Black Widow and Maria Hill,” and I thought, Yeah, of course they were. I read a beautiful thing Junot Diaz wrote: “If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.” Well said.
The interview goes on for a bit about 'Much Ado' before jumping back to Marvel talk when Whedon is asked to discuss the possibility of an Avengers sequel minus Robert Downey Jr. Joss clarified that Downey, "He is Iron Man. He is Iron Man in the way that Sean Connery was James Bond. I have no intention of making Avengers 2 without him, nor do I think I’ll be called upon to do that. I don’t think it’s in my interest, Marvel’s interest, or his interest, and I think everything will be fine." But Joss isn't a fool and acknowledges that nothing is written in stone, especially in Hollywood. He continued, "But I know that this is Hollywood and you roll with things. You have to be ready for the unexpected. But I loved working with Robert, and everybody knows he embodied that role in a way no one else can. The day he was cast, I went up to [Marvel Studios president] Kevin Feige and said, “You brilliant son of a bitch.”
And when asked what's next for Whedon once The Avengers 2 is in the can, Whedon hinted that maybe, just maybe, he'll look at rectifying that female superhero problem. "I miss the blank page. I’d love to do a ballet, but I’m still thinking about how to stage it. And back to the female-hero thing, I’m not going to let nobody do it. It doesn’t have to be me, but it could be."