Containing Vectors-Tracking ME Writers

[bytrsuite]

Jixer's message:

Hello Kittens-

This thread is to track those writers responsible for breaking W/T in particular and Buffy in general. While the actors are in the public eye and easy to follow the writers are harder to track, especially for those outside the entertainment industry. It is for those Kittens, the ones who might be lured without knowing into giving their time and or money to some project from a writer that has wasted our time and broken our hearts before, that this column is dedicated.

Thank you,

Jixer

[Warduke]

I just saw the Serenity trailer and it's going to be the best movie ever. That or a giant turkey...yeah, I'm gonna go with the second one.

The special effects look like every other sci-fi movie, nothing special. The whole space cowboy thing is retarded. And oh yeah, there's this girl, that fights like, well, a slayer

Sad, just sad.

[Blue Pariah]

I also just saw the trailer for Stupidity. And all I can say is: Wow. What an amazingly mediocre trailer that was. It was such bland mush that it wasn't even worth getting worked up about. Jay-Dubya robbed me from getting a good hate-on!

What impressions DID it leave?

Well, the actors, who were never all that great to begin with, look completely lost in movie format.

The "funny" lines fall flatter than, uh, a really, really flat thing. (While not a quote, that line does give you the proper feel.)

The special effects are nothing special.

It LOOKS like a TV show. Lighting, sets, props. Not a good thing for a movie.

Could someone please find some duller music. Someone? No? Didn't think so.

Notice how it was immediately linked (in GREAT BIG LETTERS to JAY-DUBYA creator of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL? And then all the quotes (also in GREAT BIG LETTERS) about how (a couple) of critics though Fireflea was the best thing since the invention of oral sex? Sniff. Ah, I love the smell of despiration in the middle of the afternoon!

I guess it did leave an impression after all!

[emma peel]

I just watched the Serenity trailer. All I can say is that it's certainly..umm....I guess "underwhelming" would be appropriate.

[urnofosiris]

Oh I thought the special effects looked pretty and they should given the obscene budget for this movie (not a lot for a good movie, but obscenely high for this one). It certainly is not going into the salary of the actors.

They are obviously trying to sell it on Joss Whedon´s name and they are using TV shows to sell him. Interesting, no mention of his movie successes such as BtVS the Movie, Alien 4 etc. Clearly the cast has no box office appeal or they would be plugging at least one of them as well. None of that and I can´t say I am surprised, that lead guy, captain what´s his name is just BAD and not as in a bad guy you´d love to hate way. I wish I could say it were just the cliched lines he is made to utter, but I am not sure that is all it is.

Anyway, I looked at this objectively, yes I did, like I would any trailer I see when I am at a movie. I know how I would react then and I can imagine the audience´s reaction. This was just a collection of very brief cliches, you get no sense of a grand compelling story you´d want to see, the melodramatic sound effects/music just make me want to roll my eyes, the supposedly funny lines in a trailer are usually the best ones in a movie which in this case says a lot. The performance of the Captain is just too bleh to want to suffer through for 2 hours.

I am thinking Gigli box office drama here.

[Sheridan]

Well selling a movie off of TV credits seems a lame idea, after all how many of the general movie audience is going to know who he is? Buffy and Angel were never really in the TV mainstream. As for effects, these days I only tend to notice them if they are bad, you just expect effects to work in modern movies.

[WebWarlock]

I have to admit. Whedon doing Wonder Woman bugs the living hell out of me.

It's like they got Anton LeVey to write and direct a bio-pic of the life of Jesus or Moses.

Anyway, here is an older article.

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?id=30891

Wonder Woman Reinvented

Joel Silver, producer of the upcoming comic-book adaptation Wonder Woman, told SCI FI Wire that he gave writer/director Joss Whedon carte blanche to reinvent the classic superhero. "I made Joss' deal," Silver said in an interview. "Joss Whedon is writing the script. He's finishing Serenity, and when that movie is done he's going to turn his attention toward the script. He's got fantastic ideas."

Silver said that the film will surpass previous efforts to create female superheroes, which have historically met with poor critical and commercial reception. "They were terrible movies," Silver said. "I think this is a big constructionist picture. It's [the] property of Warner Brothers, and the character is the real deal if we do it right. Joss has a fantastic take on the story, and if it works the way I think it's going to work, it's going to be fantastic."

Whedon is best known for creating another female superhero, TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Silver said that his own success creating a female hero in the person of The Matrix's Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) inspired him to believe a Wonder Woman film could succeed. "When we made the first Matrix, I came out of the first test screening, and the numbers for Trinity were so much higher than anything else in the movie," Silver said. "People loved that character. I came out of there and said to the studio, 'This is interesting.' I said to the boys [Matrix directors the Wachowski brothers], 'Why don't we make a Trinity movie?' They said, 'No.' They had something else in mind. So I figured we should take Wonder Woman and try something, and [Warner Brothers] said fine. I never really felt I got it 'til now."

The "reinvented" is also bugging the shit out of me.

Warlock

[xita]

Tim, I agree. I would have been so excited about this movie. Now, I know he'll do it wrong. He has no concept of strong women. It makes me ill. It's like dude, go work on a movie about middle aged men like yourself. Leave the female characters alone. Of course he considers himself to be a great feminist and probably thinks he writes women better than anyone in hollywood. bleh

[WebWarlock]

Can I at though point out how freaking cool that quote functionality works!!

I am a Wonder Woman fan from way back. Not just the shows, but the mythology of it the gestalt if you will.

Diana is an Ambasador of Peace. She is strong because all Amazons are. And yes when push comes to shove she can beat the living shit out just about everyone in the DC universe except Superman (and that is a close call, see "A League of One" in which Wonder Woman has to take out the entire Justice League in order to save their lives. She does it too.)

Whedon will focus only on her as a Xena clone (no offense meant to Xena or Xena fans).

I have faith in the public though. Women super hero movies usually do very poorly. This I am sure will be no different.

Warlock

[WebWarlock]

I guess FireFly is going to be show in 10 in 10 cities theaters on May 10 at 10:00pm.

They won't say which theaters.

But here are the cities.

Atlanta, GA
Austin, TX
Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Denver, CO
Las Vegas, NV
Portland, OR
Sacramento, CA
San Francisco, CA
Seattle, WA

The drones are claiming they sold out already.

I can't actually figure out why they are doing this myself.

Any guesses?

Also the woman (name escapes me) who more or less green lighted this movie is now "recieving other duties" at Universal. Care to speculate?

Warlock

[urnofosiris]

Are they showing the movie itself or the trailer. I just woke up, I am easily confused.

[WebWarlock]

The entire movie.

I talked to a friend who works in Holleywood and he laughed.
He said they are doing this because the studio wants to test the movie so they have plenty of time to reshoot some scenes or the entire ending if they have to.

He said the mere fact that LA is not on the list says that they do not expect it to do well.

Warlock

[Sheridan]

I talked to a friend who works in Holleywood and he laughed.
He said they are doing this because the studio wants to test the movie so they have plenty of time to reshoot some scenes or the entire ending if they have to.

He said the mere fact that LA is not on the list says that they do not expect it to do well.

Ah so this a 'just how bad is this piece of crap test', I see a straight to DVD release coming up...

[Warduke]

There's a review at AICN that's not from a fanboy...

Looky! Another SERENITY review, but this one's not so positive!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another, less positive review of SERENITY. This is the one I was afraid of, actually. This one is from someone who didn't even know what FIREFLY was (like me... I knew it was on TV, but I couldn't tell you one damn thing about it other than there were spaceships in it) and says that the film played great to fans of the show, but left everyone else cold. That's exactly what I don't want to hear. I hope I disagree. I want to see good Sci-Fi flicks, not bad Sci-Fi Channel flicks, you know what I mean?

I saw Serenity tonight at Janns Marketplace in Thousand Oaks California in case you need to confirm this. Joss Whedon was there allegedly... i have no clue what he looks like so dont hold me to this, but everyone was buzzing about that. Call me SuperMedz, because that's who this is.

I had never been to a test screening until tonight so the other day when I was offered passes by my local gym for a "top secret science fiction movie" I lept at the opportunity to be a part of the process. I was told it would be in the vein of "I Robot" and "The Day After Tomorrow" so I went into the AICN chatroom and got a tip that the screening would be for Michael Bay's supposedly brainy new movie, The Island. This was not to be. It was for Joss Whedon's Serenity.

I have maybe seen one full episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and uh, Alien:Resurrection. That is the full extent of my experience with Joss Whedon. I didn't even know that this movie was based on the show Firefly (which I had only heard of) until I overheard someone whisper that fact in the audience. So this review should give you an interesting perspective of someone who is not familiar with the show at all. I think that my lack of contact with the source material definitely hurt my experience with the film. The overall reception that the movie got from the audience was cheers from the fans of the show and a little boredom from those who were not familiar with it.

For those of you, like me, who are not familiar. Serenity is about River Tam (Summer Glau), a psychic girl who is held captive by a government operative. In probably the coolest part of the movie, the opening scene, we see her freed by her brother, Simon (Sean Maher). Apparently the doctor that was holding her captive, exposed her to the parliament so she knows all of their secrets, since she is captive. For some reason, the villain known only as The Operative played obnoxiously over the top by Chiwetal Ejiofor, is not cool with this, and uses the same move that Uma Thurman used to Kill Bill with on the doctor. Everyone in the future knows kung fu. All of this happens before the opening titles.

And there you have your typical sci-fi channel psychobabble. While I'm sure a lot of you will get a lot out of this, there are so many characters, so many planets, so many subplots, in this movie (I haven't even mentioned these crazy rastafarian vampire looking dudes that torment both sides), that it's so hard to give a shit about anyone or any story. It's so hard to even keep track of what the story even is. My logic is that if you're going to make a movie based on a tv show that lasted seven episodes, at least give me, the virginal viewer, something that I can care about. All I saw was an intriguing space western arch that unfortunately reeked... and I hate to use the cliche... SCI-FI CHANNEL EXCLUSIVE.

I'm being a little bit harsh, partially because I wanted to see The Island. There was some good. I see the appeal behind Joss Whedon after seeing this movie. The one-liners here are really witty, and if the story focused more on the brother and sister dynamics between River and Simon rather than the Firefly cast, I probably would have been way more interested. Also, it was really surprisingly violent, River goes apeshit with an axe and a sword on the rastafarian vampires, but you probably won't see that in the final version I'm sure. As far as this movie being finished... most of the effects looked done... the score sounded awfully familiar to me... some of the shots were rough, but very few and far in between... it's mostly finished as far as I could see, but I'm new at this.

It's not that bad... 2 out of 4 stars??

- Yup, it's SuperMedz

Well this is what we all knew. Only the fanboys are going to enjoy this. And there's not enough of those to make this movie a hit.

A few parts were too funny.

if the story focused more on the brother and sister dynamics between River and Simon rather than the Firefly cast, I probably would have been way more interested

That's so damn funny. It's a movie about fruitfly and he says it would have been way more interesting if it didn't focus on the fruitfly cast

All I saw was an intriguing space western arch that unfortunately reeked... and I hate to use the cliche... SCI-FI CHANNEL EXCLUSIVE

[sam7777]

Yep this shite should have aired on the scifi channel rather than blow $50million in theatres. The review shows to me that the movie will have little appeal for non-ME sychophants.

I echo what Tim said about the quote functionality. It rockes and works alot better with Mozilla/Firefox.

I have no interest in seeing Wonder Woman even if Josswad wasn't doing it to be truthful. I would be interested if they got a woman writer/director but with the guys who usually do genre stuff, we have a 90% chance of crap like Electra, Cat Woman, Barb Wire, Supergirl et al. Personally, I would like to see Mira Nair who directed "Vanity Fair" or Jane Campion do it though not the ladies doing "L Word" (they like male titillation WAY too much). There are alot of talented women out there and giving one of them a shot would be nice. They certainly can't do as badly as what has already blighted the big screen.

[aceivan]

everyone in the future knows kung fu...its so hard to give a shit about anyone...vampires...boredom

It sounds like the same old same old from Jossie. I'd never have guessed.

Len

[sam7777]

ME writers hardly have an enviable track record and have left behind of morgue full of dead shows:

Noxious: Stillborn LIfe, Point Unpleasant (both wasting a Fox 7 figure contract)

Minnear: Fireshit, Wonderwhyfalls (both also wasting a Fox 7 figure contract)

David Greenwalt: Miracles (ABC), Jake 2.0 (UPN)

JaneEcch: GG (WB, coincidentally failing when she was on it and better when she was gone), Tru Calling (FOX, cancelled when she got on it)

Furious: Helsing TV series (NBC, never made it to pilot)

Their successes are pretty short lived and qualified: Ecch worked on one ep of the OC while Furious left mid season on the uber successful Lost.

Furious and Noxious were also exec producers for the final awful seasons of AtS and BTVS that ended those shows.

Greenwalt's not a bad guy like the rest of 'em but he really blew it with Jake when he praised it's competition Angel and then went to work on that show before Jake was even cold in the ground. UPN has a right to be miffed at his lack of committment to the show they hired him to produce. Greenwalt has nothing new on IMDB.

Also according to IMDB, Noxious has no projects going but surely with what they are pissing away in her direction, Fox will give her another show to run into the ground. Speaking of running shows into the ground, Furios is poised to be a producer on 24 next season. Too bad for "24".

Now most of this nightmare team is working on "The Inside" for Fox:
Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Jane Espenson writer
David Fury writer
Tim Minear writer

How bad can that show be?!?

ETA: Futon Critic has a run down of Fox's pilots for next season and "The Inside" is not profiled:
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/newswire.cgi?id=6897
previewing fox's 2005-06 season pilots

Judging from the info at Futon Critic, "The Inside" seems to be headed the Stillborn Life route. It was originally a "midseason drama"t but hasn't been put on the schedule (rumors that it would air in March were false). Now it's supposedly "premiering this summer (2005)" and has a 13ep order but to date it has not been scheduled to air. Personally if they air this shit, I hope that it's in summer so it can be forgotten all the sooner.

As to the shit that is "Wonder Woman" here's the latest from Silver:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=5230
WONDER WOMAN

Producer Joel Silver talked to AAP (registration required) about plans for Themyscria's Finest. "Silver would not be drawn into speculation about who might slip into the skimpy red, white and blue costume and bullet-reflecting bracelets Lynda Carter made famous in the 1970s TV series. 'No, we're not there yet,' Silver said of the casting. 'We're still writing the script.' A date for when 'Wonder Woman' and her magic lasso might begin shooting also was not certain. 'There's no timeframe yet,' Silver said. 'We've got Joss Whedon writing the script. When we have a script we'll make a decision about what we're going to do.'"

This iteration of the Project is by no means a done deal. Silver has had other folks do scripts in the past and it didn't get made. This time may not be the charm either. Joss Whedon is joining a whole herd of writers who have done scripts for Silver in the past:
Todd Alcott (13 Ghosts) ..... Dec 26, 2001
Jon Cohen (Minority Report) ..... Jan 30, 2002
Becky Johnston (Price of Tides) ..... Apr 4, 2002
Philip Levens (Smallville) ..... Aug 19 2003
Laeta Kalogridis (Birds of Prey) ..... Sep 29, 2003

On another note, the media are shit heads. Look at the title of this article:
Wonder Woman set to be shot in Australia
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=50154

And Silver's quote from the same article:

Hollywood super producer, Joel Silver, has revealed Australia is at the top of his list as the shoot location for his next blockbuster, Wonder Woman the movie.

"When I make Wonder Woman I'll probably do it in Australia," said Silver

Where the hell so they go from that to "set to be shot in Australia". When it comes to and his shit, reality just flies out the window.

[Sheridan]

It still baffles me how in a town that lives by the credo of 'What have you done for me lately?' That these losers are still getting hired. Surely it should be obvious to everyone by now that they were one trick ponies. Every show they have come up with since seem to have been a pale Buffy clone, Point Pleasant might as well just have been called 'BTVS MkII'. And why would anyone trust JW with a movie project like WW when it seems increasingly likely he has pissed away $50 million on a movie that won't so much be released as tunnel out and escape?

[sam7777]

I'm also baffled because I heard that Josswad couldn't get a job directing traffic in Hollywierd and then he got $50million for Sereneshit and now Wonder Woman. However, Wondershit is not a done deal as Silver says:

'There's no timeframe yet,' Silver said. 'We've got Joss Whedon writing the script. When we have a script we'll make a decision about what we're going to do.'"

Many others have tried to do a script and all so far have failed (see my post above).

Here's more on ME writers and the blight that they are speading:

Drew Goddard, Jeff Bell: Alias (ABC)
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2005-05-12-vartan_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA

the Alias cast widely believes will be the show's fifth and final year.

Another coincidence surely.

Ben Edlund (Angel): Global Freqency (WB, never made it past the pilot)

The Drooler (Drew Greenberg): Smallville (WB, hemorraging ratings), The O.C. (FOX),
Coincidently now not so acclaimed:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050512/RYAN12/TPEntertainment/Columnists
The force is no longer with The O.C.

t took nearly a year but they finally messed up The O.C. (Fox, CTV, 8 p.m.).
....
Something went horribly wrong during this sophomore season of The O.C. It seemed as though the show was being written and produced by different people.

Where could the problem be?

Doug Petrie: Tru Calling (FOX, cacelled), Lost in Space (WB, never made it ti air)

Mere Smith (Angel): Tarzan (WB, cancelled), Johnny Zero (FOX, cancelled)

A dark cloud just seems to follow these people.

ETA2: Fox has decided to burn off "The Inside" eps this summer:
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/newswire.cgi?id=6900

FOX Gives 'The Inside' June Premiere, Wednesday Slot

FOX has scheduled its first new scripted series of the summer as the network plans to premiere the drama "The Inside" on Wednesday, June 8 at 9:00/8:00c.

Sounds like good news for the ME shits but looking at it, it's not really that good. Why announce the premiere the week before upfronts, unless the show will not be on the Fall schedule suggesting a burn off of eps. "The Inside" was originally set to be a mid-season replacement but never got on the schedule. Now with a new creative team, they are suddenly rushed out to a June 6 premiere. Desn't it make more sense to premiere it in the Fall and allow the new team to remake the show? Fox's web site still has it listed as a 2004-2005 show under the original premise:
http://www.fox.com/schedule/2004/inside.htm

They are working on a new site but it's still "coming soon" for a show that will premiere June 8th?!? It certainly looks to me like they are rushing this out to burn off the eps as they did to "Keen Eddie". Summer has not been a great time to launch shows. Though "Summerland" had a moderate last summer, it has only been aired as a 13 episode mid-season replacment since, hardly a big vote of confidence from the WB. It's not on their fall schedule. "Keen Eddie" fared worse even with a 13 ep order as "The Inside" supposedly has when it aired in summer:
http://www.tvtome.com/KeenEddie/eplist.html

Season 1
1. 1-1 KED-101 03-Jun-2003
2. 1-2 KED-102 10-Jun-2003
3. 1-3 KED-109 17-Jun-2003
4. 1-4 KED-112 24-Jun-2003
5. 1-5 KED-106 01-Jul-2003
6. 1-6 KED-110 08-Jul-2003
7. 1-7 KED-107 24-Jul-2003
8. 1-8 KED-111 27-Jan-2004
9. 1-9 KED-108 17-Feb-2004
10. 1-10 KED-104 02-Mar-2004
11. 1-11 KED-105 24-Mar-2004
12. 1-12 KED-103 07-Apr-2004
13. 1-13 KED-113 14-Apr-2004

They aired half the seaosn in summer and then squirted out the rest of the eps at the end of the seaosn.

[WebWarlock]

More Wonder Woman Woes.

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?id=31056

Wonder Set In Modern Day

Joss Whedon, writer and director of the upcoming Wonder Woman movie, told Now Playing magazine that the film will be set in the modern world. The original story "goes back to World War II," Whedon told the magazine. But, he added, "this will be in the modern day, but Wonder Woman herself will never be in the modern day."

Who will play the part of Princess Diana? Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) said that he hasn't even begun to think about that as he finishes up his upcoming SF movie, Serenity, on which he's making his feature-film directorial debut.

"[Casting] is the last thing on my mind, and I'm happy to say it's the last thing on Warner Brothers' and [producer] Joel [Silver's] mind, too," Whedon said. "We're like, 'Let's write the part! Then we'll have a better idea of who's good for it.' And we've talked about whether it should be someone famous or an unknown. Ultimately there are advantages to both, so nobody's thinking about that. ... Except everybody."

As for the story, Whedon said: "She doesn't have a villain as recognizable as [a Lex Luthor]. In fact, she doesn't have a lot of things as recognizable as a lot of the other heroes have. But that's not a problem, simply because she's basically based on Greek mythology, which opens up a world of interesting possibilities. She's very different from anybody who might have been bitten by a spider or had his parents killed in an alley."

Surprisingly, Whedon admitted that he hasn't begun writing Wonder Woman yet. "There hasn't even actually been a whole deal signed and everything [for Wonder Woman]. I'm working on it in the way that I always work on everything, which is that I think about it while I'm doing other things. But right now we're in the final stages of wrapping up Serenity, and that's where my focus is. The reason I was able to take the Wonder Woman gig was that they don't have a release date and they don't have a schedule, and that means I have time to sit back and get it right. It will happen, but it's not like 'Bang! You're 10 weeks under the gun.' The starting gun has not fired, but I always jump the gun anyway. When you have a product that rich you can't help but think of ideas for it, the same way I think of ideas for the Serenity sequel that may never happen. We don't turn it off." Serenity opens Sept. 30

Read between the lines here, this should be old hat for us by now.

1. No contracts have been signed yet. Why?
2. Look at that last line in detail "for the Serenity sequel that may never happen". Whedon is already priming the pump. In October he'll come out say that "the studio was pleased with how Senerity did, but it just never really found it's audience" and how he is "ready to move on to other projects, but Senerity will always be very special for me".

Mark my words.

Warlock

[sam7777]

Gosh Wondershit just gets shittier and shittier.

Tim: Thanks for the article. Wow that says alot about how tentative this Wondershit stuff is and jibes with what Silver said: " 'There's no timeframe yet,' Silver said. 'We've got Joss Whedon writing the script. When we have a script we'll make a decision about what we're going to do.' " Indeed why no contracts and no schedule? It seems they don't want to sign anything without seeing a script first nor do they want to pay for the script from . Doesn't say much about their faith in . I wonder of Warners is putting on the brakes on because of Sereneshit or because of the stab in the back with buffy on the WB. Or maybe Silver isn't committed to and is just using his name for publicity for his moribound Wonder Woman project.

This looks even less ready for prime time than prior scripts that were done before by Silver.
http://www.comics2film.com/ProjectFrame.php?f_id=27&f_page=3
Oct 10, 2004 -Laeta Kalogridis finished with 'Wonder Woman' draft

At one point they were going to do Wonder Girl instead and were looking at casting. Silver was never planning to do Wonder Woman in WW2 and was always looking at modern day so it's certainly not Josswad's brainstorm. For my part I prefer the WW2 setting so there's another reason to give this shite a miss.

[sam7777]

Wonder shit remains in the ether. Speculation on catsting comes with a phrase that we have heard over and over from Buffy actors:
http://www.comics2film.com/ProjectFrame.php?f_id=27&f_page=1

Katie Holmes up for Wonder Woman

Synopsis: 'Batman Begins' actress Katie Holmes is alleged to be one of Hollywood's top candidates to play 'Wonder Woman' in producer Joel Silver's film about the sexy superhero.

Silver has earmarked Australia as the likely shoot location for the big-budget project and Holmes says if the script is good, she might be interested in donning the red, white and blue costume and bullet-reflecting bracelets.

"I'd have to read it," Holmes told AAP in Los Angeles.

Gee. Remember when Aly was talking like this? My guess is that it will never happen. I think word has gotten round that Josswad is a shit to actresses such that no actress with any sort of name will be willing to work with him especially as their director.

As to Josswad's other project, Sereneshit, is anybobody talking about this crap?! Went to Dark Horizons Upcoming movie page and it is MIA:
http://www.darkhorizons.com/films.php

[Sheridan]

Silver's tie up with JW does seem more like an effort to generate publicity than a serious intent to have him create a script. Silver may have imagined that Serenity would make a big splash and he could piggyback on that, we could could have told him better.

[Warduke]

From TV Guide...

Spike and Angel Rise from Grave
by Ethan Alter

Cancelation, like death, doesn't seem to stop vampires. Characters from three defunct Joss Whedon series — Buffy, Angel and Firefly — are being resurrected this summer in comic-book form.

First up, on June 29 is Angel: The Curse, IDW Publishing's five-part story set after the events of last year's apocalyptic series finale. The story finds Angel in Romania searching for the Gypsy tribe that cursed him with a soul a century ago. IDW also brings back Angel's former rival for Buffy's affections in the one-shot Spike: Old Times in August. The blond Brit will reunite with a vengeance demon and former crush. In between these two Buffyverse comics, the first issue of Dark Horse Comics' Serenity, based on the space-cowboy TV show Firefly, goes on sale July 6. The three-part comic serves as a bridge between the series and the upcoming movie, directed by Whedon and due in theaters on September 30.

Additionally, Whedon is regularly penning the best-selling title Astonishing X-Men from Marvel Comics. Here, the busy writer/director takes a break from editing his feature-film debut to tell TVGuide.com all about his comic antics.

TVGuide.com: What is your exact involvement with these different comic-book projects?
Joss Whedon: It ranges... For the Angel and Spike comics, I basically told [the writers] areas to stay away from, just in case those were stories that we still might get a chance to tell on film. Otherwise, I pretty much let them do their thing, although I kept peeking over [their shoulders]. For the Serenity comic, I worked out the story with the writer Brett Matthews and have been sort of overseeing the editing and giving notes.

TVG: How will the comic lead into the movie?
Whedon: Well, when the series ended, certain things were happening and, in the movie, certain things have already happened. So the idea was to bridge the time gap and act as a kind of prequel for the movie. Inara has sworn she's going to leave the ship, and this deals with Mal's reaction to that. It also showcases the crew in their usual state, with lots of heists going wrong. And it features the return of a villain from the series... a couple [of them], in fact. It's an action/heisty romp that hopefully gives the characters a little more resonance. It does leave you prepped for the movie should you want that, but you don't need to have seen the series or be planning to see the movie for the comic to work.

TVG: You're known for being very hands-on when it comes to controlling the direction of your worlds. Is it hard to watch other people write adventures for these characters?
Whedon: I get the usual mix of feelings: horror, pride and fun. You do want to do everything yourself, but every now and then, someone shows you something you haven't thought of and it's really charming. It's tough because I'm very strict about the canon of my shows, but at the same time, you have to let people create. As long as it's responsible, all they have to do is make it engaging and I'm satisfied.

TVG: What advantages do comic books offer over film
Whedon: For one thing, there's no budget. The artists can't say, "I can't afford to draw a dragon." Also, you can tell stories in all kinds of odd ways and you're not beholden to sponsors. But at the same time, while you can do almost anything, a Buffy comic is going to be picked up by younger people, so you have to look out for what you're doing there. And ultimately, you don't have four acts and an episode a week — you have 22 pages and an episode a month. So, in a way, it's very similar. But you do have great leeway to do whatever you want in terms of visuals. We have a space-heist sequence in the Serenity comic. That's an expensive proposition in a movie or TV show. It's zero gravity and Nathan Fillion [who plays Mal Reynolds in Serenity] hates harnesses. But his comic-book self doesn't mind floating at all! He's the most perfect gentleman I've ever worked with. [Laughs]

TVG: Do you think any of these comics will become ongoing series?
Whedon: I could see it happening. But for me, it's about getting the story out that you're telling right now. Don't worry about the next thing. You have to keep your eyes on the prize, and right now that prize is trying to make a three-part comic that's worth your time and spare change, and a movie that's worth putting your butt in the theater. If both of those things work, then I'll have to work more. And if they don't work, I'll wish I had to work more.

TVG: Finally, will we ever learn what happened in that alleyway in the series finale of Angel?
Whedon: Of course. I have every intention of keeping the Buffyverse alive — and not just in flashback tales that I'm not connected to. And if I can't do it with the actors I love, I might just do it with drawings of the actors I love.

The last question...that's right joss, the only way you're going to keep the buffyverse alive is in comics. Because it sure as hell won't be on TV.

[urnofosiris]

Buffy, Angel and Firefly — are being resurrected this summer in comic-book form.

What a waste of perfectly good trees

[sam7777]

I don't read josswad's interview but keying off what DrG said: doing comics is a frank admission that the buffyverse is dead. Nowadays comics are a common marketting tool with every genre and even many non-genre shows (re CSI) getting one. The folks who work on these licensed comics typically scrape the bottom of barrel. These days the intersection between comics fans and tv fans is very small and few ME zombies will be satisfied with the comics.

In any case like all these stories, I'll believe it when I see it at my local comics shop and don't buy it. Like the TOON, they seem to talk about it for a few months and then it dissappears. Where are the Spike telefilms from the last ME rumor. They can only cry wolf so many times before I simply stop believing. IDG is a nothing comics publisher and like Crossgen could easily go the way of the Curlew before many of these if any of these issues see print.

[Warduke]

Yet another Serenity review at AICN. And again, it's not a good one...

Dem Bones bones SERENITY...

Hey folks, Harry here... I just can't seem to get excited about SERENITY. I know how passionate the Firefly fans are... but their enthusiasm leaves me feeling like I did coming out of TANK GIRL. When I saw that film - the audience I saw it with seemed to absolutely love and enjoy every second of that film. While I sat there looking at them like they were insane. I didn't really enjoy FIREFLY on DVD when I saw it. Wished I did. It would mean the love of Herc, which is like being wrapped in a thousand twitching tongues for 42 minutes. I'm hoping to enjoy the movie though, Robogeek claims it's the best movie he's seen this year. Though I don't know if that holds still... he's seen HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE and the Miyazaki geek in him may be stronger than the Whedon geek. Here's Dem Bones' review - beware of spoilers...


Hello Harry, Moriarty and crew--here is a review of “Serenity“, if you want to publish it…

Oh Firefly. I loved that show. The characters, the world, the writing, direction, acting--I loved it. But I am not here to praise it, unfortunately -- I am here to bury it.

After less than half a season, Fox dumped the show, leaving many of us who loved the show up in the air, until it got a new life on DVD, prompting rabid sales and now, a movie sequel--”Serenity”.

I got a chance to see the film last night in Columbus, Ohio--and as amazing as it was to see the crew come together, as fantastic as the effects and directing were, Universal has a problem on there hands. They have invested their money in an odd, dark, science fiction fetish movie expecting a new franchise--but it really only works as a finale to the TV show. As good as the film is, I do not expect it will bring new fans into the fold, except to get people to watch the DVDs of “Firefly”. I really think it is a very good film, but it has major hurdles to overcome. I will try to talk about the film with minor spoilers…

On of the major problem with “Serenity” is that you really need to have seen Firefly to enjoy it. The events of the film, the good and bad, only affect us if we have an intimate knowledge of our Merry Band of Pirates from watching the show. If you had not seen the last two episodes, you would not know why “hooker-with-the-hear-of-gold” Inara is not on the ship, who she is, what she means to Mal, and what the big deal is to get her back onto the ship. In fact, there is no reason to have her in the movie at all--she really does nothing to advance the plot nor is she a big help when the chips come down. Even in the end, when we should get some kind of payoff for the implications of Mal and Inara’s feelings--we get nothing.

The major plot points of the film, as you can tell from the trailer, deals with crazy, psychic River Tam and the crazy, cannibalistic Reavers -- two of the weaker elements of the show, now brought to the forefront. Do we really care why the Reavers became mad-dog cannibal murderers? Is it really that important? Men have gone crazy and committed murder forever--why do we need a ‘McGuffin’ built around them? Do we really need to focus on what in River’s head makes her crazy? We know through exposition that she was experimented on Mengele-style to become an assassin…isn’t that enough? And where are our blue-handed, evil Alliance men?

Another thing -- when there are TWO MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHS in the film, you really need to have strong scenes setting them up, so you can feel something when they die. Having seen the show, they did affect me--but to someone unfamiliar to the show, they might not feel anything. One of the deaths I understand--it moved the characters forward…but the other death was so pointless and hackneyed it actually made me angry--which is more than I can say about the characters in the film. They just shrug it off and move on, and that is another problem with the film --everyone seems cold. When you get the aforementioned character deaths, you would think that we would get some moment at the end that had our characters actually experiencing some kind of display of emotional outpouring--but no. The film fails to build enough character moments in the first half, so that you really feel the loss of the characters.

In the original pilot for Firefly (also titled Serenity) Whedon had Malcolm Reynolds be an angry loner sourpuss, convinced that God had abandoned him -- and that was okay. I don’t know if it was studio’s tweaking, but he seemed lighter as the show went on. And this film needs more light. It is uncompromisingly dark--and the captain comes off as a real jackass. He is not the fun captain we expect, and he doesn’t go through a character arc to become him in the end.

I think, in the end that is the sad truth of the film--it is not fun. And we wanted it to be fun--to be a celebration of continuing on, even in the face of cancellation. It would have been nice if it was a smart, complicated lark--that’s how you start a franchise, letting them get darker as the series progresses. You build your relationships, so you can pull the rug out from under your audience, sweetening the emotional resonance. The sad thing is, as close to great as this movie is, there isn’t time or money for improvements. The movie, outside of the music score, is finished.

These pre-screenings really serve no purpose, since there will be no re-shooting or re-editing. The only purpose for these screenings I can think of is that Universal knows that there is little chance of it succeeding at the box office, so the hope that a grass-roots, limited-engagement screenings will drive up the grosses for opening weekend. If they were smart, they would just open it in limited release, keeping the viewing of this movie an event.

We thought we were getting a sequel or a new beginning, and what we get is an ending, a burial. This film will not spawn sequels or a new TV show. At least when we left the show with “Objects in Space”, there was still the open-ended hope of new adventures. Now, with Serenity, the coffin is nailed shut.

I hope that is helpful to you guys. I am sorry that my opinion isn’t higher. I certainly wanted it to be knocked out of the park.

If you do use this , just refer to me as “Dem Bones”

I bolded the part that screams, deja vu anyone?

Nice to see at least he's learned from his mistakes. Oh right, he's doesn't make mistakes. He's a god...The mighty god of hacks.

[sam7777]

Wow. That part almost screams what happened to poor Tara. Josswad won't learn anything as long as he has his sychophants to blow sunshine up his @ss. Cancellations, bad reviews and the WB not giving him a contract to ruin Wondershit make not impression. Frankly his 'tude reminds me of the shrub and repugs. Why let reality get in the way of his ego, arrogance, wrong idead and hurt to other? Losing everything appears to be the only thing that MAY wake these folks up.

[WebWarlock]

Yeah, I heard this all yesterday. Made me gigle.

I thought for sure these pre-screenings were for reshoots, but I guess not.

This shit will tank. Good.

Now on to another point.
Can we not refer to Wonder Woman as "Wondershit"?
Three very good reasons.
1. Joss has not signed a contract as of yet.
2. Something like Wonder Woman with almost 65+ years of a positive female character deserves better.
3. It is difficult to know whether one is talking about this or "Wonderfalls".

The character of Wonder Woman deserves better. She deserves better than Whedon and some really crappy stories from the 40s too but I can't do a thing about either of those.

Warlock

[sam7777]

Can we not refer to Wonder Woman as "Wondershit"?
.....
3. It is difficult to know whether one is talking about this or "Wonderfalls".

Too True. Though I call Wonderfalls, WonderWhyfalls because I wonder why Fox did two shows: Tru and WonderWhyFalls so similar to Joan of Arcadia.

How about WonderWomanWillBeShitWithWhedon? That is what I meant by wondershit. And let's face it it will be shit if Whedon does it. I agree Wonder Woman deserves a hell of alot better than Whedon and Joel Silver as well. It's Silver who pushing shit like Whedon for Wonder Woman. The WB should take away the rights from Silver and give it to someone who will do right by the character.

I wouold love to see Jane Campion do it.

ETA: Another factor that may affect Sereneshit is the release of another genre appeal movie the same weekend: David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence"
http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/648/648835p1.html

Exclusive Clips: A History of Violence
Scenes from Cronenberg's new thriller starring Viggo Mortensen.
by IGN FilmForce

September 8, 2005 - Today, we've got a series of exclusive clips from director David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, starring Viggo Mortensen, for you to check out today. The dramatic thriller, which opens on Friday, September 30th, is based on John Wagner and Vince Locke's graphic novel of the same name.

Mortensen stars as Tom Stall, a pillar of his small Indiana community who runs a diner and lives a happy and quiet life with his wife (Maria Bello) and two children. But their lives are forever changed when Mortensen thwarts an attempted robbery.

Heralded as a hero, Tom's life is changed overnight, attracting a media circus. Tom tries to return to his normal life only to be confronted by two dangerous mobsters (Ed Harris and William Hurt) who believe he is someone else.

David Cronenberg (Crash, Spider, Dead Ringers) helmed the picture from a screenplay by Josh Olson.

A History of Violence, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, hits theaters everywhere on September 30th, 2005. It has been rated R for strong brutal violence, graphic sexuality, nudity, language and some drug use by the MPAA.

The movie is already gettimg some good critical buzz from Cannes and the Toronot film festival. It has comic creds for the fan boys, star power in Viggo Mortensen and a real director in David Cronenberg. It will also appeal to the adults heading back to theatres in September. This could be the break out film for the Sep 30th weekend. I haven't liked everything that Cronenberg has done but there is no denying his talent. The film is also generating some Oscar buzz which will never happen for Sereneshit.

Sneak poreviews have genrated better reivews than the mx that Sereneshit has gotten with no need to pack the theatre with sychophants:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/005737.html

SNEAK PREVIEW: A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

Oddly, I left the theater yesterday after seeing the new Cronenberg film A History of Violence on a bit of a giddy high. Strange for a film that's ostensibly, or let's face it, PRETENDS to be, wisely, "about" the "nature" of violence and blah blah. The truth is, Cronenberg is mischeviously disinterested in grandiose themes here...if History of Violence is "about" anything, it seems to be that everything is a form of mechanism, not least of all, its own narrative. It's being released wide on a Friday by New Line, and one can almost, just almost, see what the studio was thinking: Cronenberg's film can function as a conventional thriller, if you care to read it that way; and it seems like part of Cronenberg is asking you, even daring you, to do just that. And thus by buying into its incredibly disconcerting surface pleasures you become caught up in one of cinema's best recent acts of trickery.