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Joss talks Astonishing X-Men & Firefly for UGO

POSTED BY: Poetic4U
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:33
VIEWED: 3913
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004 7:58 PM

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You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't seen at least one of Joss Whedon's creations. He is, after all, the guy who has had three television series on the air in the past seven years, has written and rewritten countless movies, and who was even nominated for an Academy Award for the first Toy Story. And now, as Angel comes to a close, Joss has managed to find time to write an entire year of Marvel's new Astonishing X-Men comic.

Of course, genre and even non-genre fans realize that he can handle it. He has publicly acknowledged that Kitty Pryde was a big influence on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and a uncredited writing credit on the first X-Men movie gives him just a bit of credibility.

Even though Angel recently aired its final episode, it's still going to be a banner year for Whedon fans. Not only is he shooting the highly anticipated Firefly movie -- entitled Serenity -- but the X-Men comics are being written by two masters: Whedon and John Cassaday.

UGO: Who contacted you to work on Astonishing X-Men in the first place?

JOSS WHEDON: [Marvel Editor-In-Chief] Joe Quesada cornered me at the San Diego Comic-Con. He had done it before, but this time he broke me down.

UGO: Did you say to him, "Joe it would take all my shows being cancelled before I would ever work on X-Men?"

JOSS: [laughs] I didn't say that, but it does work out timing-wise.

UGO: How much editorial input have you been getting? Had you written many comics before?

JOSS: I wrote a series called Fray for Dark Horse and a couple of other things. This is my first Marvel work. So far they've been very hands-off, but they do have guidelines. I pitch my stuff at them and if they say go with that, I do, and if they say don't, then I don't. If they do have a problem, it would probably be something contradicting the universe because there is so much going on, but I will probably do that anyway.

UGO: Did they send over a big book of guidelines?

JOSS: What I have is my editor who is an expert on all things. If I have a question about a character, he has all the info. I just e-mail him.

UGO: Are you going to pull a Ben Edlund and put out twelve issues in five years, or go at a faster pace like Kevin Smith?

JOSS: [laughs] Fray was in the Edlund/Smith mode of storytelling. I don't have a choice this time. I signed a contract to meet deadlines. I know how Marvel works and I take it seriously. I'm not running three shows, so to me this is my TV show this year. It's going to air, so I better get to making it.

UGO: If I had to guess, I would imagine you are not doing this for the money. You are a fan of the X-Men. But what made you want to do a series that was in continuity instead of a miniseries?

JOSS: Originally, I was asked if I wanted to take over New X-Men from Grant [Morrison]. I was reading New X-Men and loving it. The other part of the equation was [working with] John Cassaday. I had been talking about doing something with John for years. Then, once I signed on, I was told it wasn't New X-Men but Astonishing X-Men. I was like "What?" But I took the same premise and cast that Grant established and worked from there because I was caught up in that book.

UGO: Did anything that you wrote make it into the first X-Men movie?

JOSS: "You're a dick" [the exchange between Wolverine and Cyclops when Cyclops isn't aware that "Wolverine" is an imposter.]

UGO: So is anything from your X-Men screenplay that's going to go into this Astonishing run?

JOSS: No. It's different characters that are at a different time in a different medium. I'm not going to recycle old screenplay stuff to tell this new story. You come to the X-Men, that's a grave responsibility where I come from. That's the real deal. I grew up reading this book, and I'm not there to rehash old ideas just to have a fun sideline while I shoot my movie. It's a very serious job where I am pushing myself to do something new. If I phone it in or cull it from something, the readers are going to know and I think that makes me a lameass. I'm not g

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Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:33 PM

Excellent interview. A bit heavy on the comic book side of things, but enough mentions of Serenity to keep my interest.

I did like this part of the interview:

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UGO: I read that you are making a movie that is going to appeal to everyone, and not just fans of the series. When you were in the writing process for Serenity, did you ever not do something because you knew only fans of the series would get it?

JOSS: You have to make it for the broadest possible audience. Universal doesn't want a movie that is the next episode of the TV series nor do I want to make that. However, I am strict about trying to respect the fans of the show because they have so much to do with why we got this movie made in the first place. I was really serving two masters, and it made the writing process difficult. I was determined to find a story that would not repeat or contradict in any major way what has gone before on the show, yet to fresh eyes it would seem just the right place to start telling this story. That's a tricky thing to do, but I feel good about the way I did it.


Sounds like Joss has put a great deal of effort and thought into the script for the movie, not that we would really expect anything else. Still, it is good to hear him giving us props and that we and story continuity were taken into consideration when he wrote the script.


"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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