Joss Whedon Criticizes Lack Of Female Superhero Films; Could He Make CAPTAIN MARVEL?

Feminist filmmaker Joss Whedon has been a pioneer for female genre material ever since creating the breakout character Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Spending most of his career opening doors for actresses/female characters to be taken serious as leads of genre television series and feature films.

Even playing in the sandbox of my female-led franchise with his script for Alien Resurrection writing for the iconic genre character Ellen Ripley.

In an interview with Digital Spy he calls out Hollywood's "stupid people" blocking female-led comic book films. Also, pointing to fact Fox has access to the best female Marvel characters which isn't leaving Marvel Studios with much to work with. He would know since he wrote for the X-Men comics.

"It's a phenomenon in the industry that we call 'stupid people'," Whedon said. "There is genuine, recalcitrant, intractable sexism, and old-fashioned quiet misogyny that goes on. 

"You hear 'Oh, [female superheroes] don't work because of these two bad ones that were made eight years ago', there's always an excuse." 

"Hunger Games is a different structure and aesthetic to a certain extent, but these narratives where people are bigger than life and they're in these terrible, heightened circumstances, it's all part of the same genre," he said. 

"Marvel is in a position of making a statement simply by making [a female-led] movie, which I think would be a good thing to do. "But it has to be a good movie, it has to be a good character, and most of the best characters in Marvel are owned by Fox, let's face it!" 

Fox has yet to announce development a female driven superhero film since Elektra bombed.

Although, there has been talk from X-Men producers Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg being interested in making Kitty Pryde and Mystique films but it's all been talk so far.

Whedon knows only too well what studio suits think of female superhero projects, Warner Bros. took an axe to his Wonder Woman film which had Cobie Smulders attached to star.

The studio is finally moving forward with a new adaptation with Breaking Bad's Michelle MacLaren and Gal Gadot in the titular role.

Joss would later gravitate towards Marvel and give us The Avengers, the big daddy of the comic book film genre.

Developing Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow into a total badass which was expanded upon in Captain America: Civil War. Not to mention giving Cobie a second-shot at the genre playing S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill which has led to both becoming big supporting players in the cinematic universe.

When he was set on making it's sequel Age of Ultron he did all he could to add more female characters into the already cast heavy film. Giving us Godzilla's Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlett Witch and Marco Polo's Claudia Kim as a scientist friend of Tony Stark.

He's all about talking about Hollywood making these female comic book films but will he end-up making one of his own?

These new statements sound like there is a bit of a fire in Whedon to possibly tackle the genre, we'd all love to see him prove his point.

Joss was in attendance at the big Marvel event in October which he seemed really only there to help support Ultron. However, since he's already talking about leaving the Avengers franchise he could have been there for other motives.

This was the first official reveal that Marvel was making Captain Marvel and even was bold enough to set the release date for July 2017. If you've seen footage from the event people went apeshit when the film's title card was revealed.

Kevin Feige would go on stating the film had been in-development almost as long as Guardians and Doctor Strange, adding that news of a writer and director was coming soon.

Some speculate we'll hear the announcement around the time of the release of Age of Ultron, as production would likely have to begin sometime in 2016.

The Whedon link to Carol Danvers goes back a while when he first stated he hated the character, and then in an interview with HeyUGuys over the summer did a 180 on that previous statement.

Rumors of Danvers casting started back in 2012 around the time Whedon was developing the untitled sequel's early outline. The talk at the time was that the role would appear in the second film.

Since then we've been hearing that she might be in the film after all with a possible cameo at the end of the film, we'll know for sure if Carol is in the film come May.

Talk of the development on the solo film hit the trades about a year ago it was suggested the script was being written in-house at Marvel Studios.

Meaning that an outsider hadn't been hired to write it, giving us the impression it was either someone like Guardian's Nicole Perlman (who was apart of their screenwriting program) or an existing writer at the studio, which points towards a female centric writer like Joss Whedon.

Whedon is more than capable to handle this kind of material and it would allow him to move into a different aspect of the Marvel universe as Kevin has stated her adventures are indeed set in the comic universe.

I'm sure the big question during Age of Ultron's press tour will be, is Joss Whedon going to write or direct Captain Marvel?




SOURCE: DIGITAL SPY