Joss Whedon to Rewrite Captain America and The Avengers?
Thu, April 22, 2010 
According to this article, Joss Whedon's involvement in bringing Marvel's grand vision of the Avengers to life doesn't just extend to being in the director's chair for the multi-franchise crossover. Joss Whedon is apparently also going to be given the task of rewriting the scripts for both The Avengers (written by Zak Penn) AND The First Avenger: Captain America (written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely).
I know some fans are hesitant Whedon writing the scripts is a good idea given the immature nature of the Buffy series and his tendency to use a lot of pop culture references, but I think Whedon getting involved in these 2 productions is a very good thing. Whedon may not have much experience directing major films, but he has plenty of experience in the writing department. He was the head writer of several successful television shows, he was one of the writers on Toy Story, and he was the writer on The Astonishing X-Men for years. Whedon has clearly shown he has passion for the material, he's experience with Marvel properties, and most of his writing has been able to juggle multiple plot lines and spreading out character depth in ways that utilize characters to their potential. This will also give Whedon more creative control on Avengers, which can be debated as a good or bad thing depending on your opinion of Whedon. Regardless, Marvel is not handcuffing Whedon and this shows me they have confidence in him. His involvement in Captain America particularly intrigues me because Captain America has essentially 2 origins that are connected to each other, so I have always felt Captain America's movie will directly impact The Avengers more so than either Thor's or Iron Man's will. The fact they are involving Whedon in the Captain America production shows me they want to maintain consistency between the two films, and my guess that these two films are directly connected might have some merit. This will also give Whedon some experience with the likely number 1 emphasized character in Captain America before he likely tells the second half of his origin story.
Like it or not, Marvel has gone all in with Joss Whedon, and are not holding back any chips from the pot. Whether this ends up working for Marvel remains to be seen, but I don't think Marvel would give Joss Whedon this kind of control without feeling like he will deliver us something amazing when all the fruits of Marvel's labors come to fruition on the opening day of their flagship film, The Avengers.
Reader Comments (3)
I'm a little surprised that they didn't just fire johnston from the directors chair and bring Whedon on for Cap and the Avengers.
Even if the script is great for Captain America, it is possible that Johnston will still fuck it up. Wolfman was all over the place.
I can't blame The Wolfman on JJ. He got on that production just a few weeks before it began filming, so he didn't have much time to address a lot of the problems. However, he has been involved with Captain America for several months. I think having actual time to work on the project will help him produce a quality Captain America film. Plus, I feel like Marvel has been saving Captain America, and everyone seems to be praising the early work on the production.
As far as Whedon directing both Avengers and Cap, I think that is a very bad idea. If he were to direct both, one project would suffer. He would be doing post-production stuff on Cap while pre-production work on Avengers is beginning, and it would hurt the films or possibly push them back. It is better to have him involved in Cap also, but not be the head of that production, too.
You make a good point. I would have to agree with you, I never really thought about it to that extent.
Chris Evans is going to be great as Captain America, he steals the show in 'The Losers'.