No More Marvel Movies For Joss Whedon

Despite the love he has from fans for both his movie and comic book work, making two Avengers movies to help shape the Marvel Cinematic Universe took a lot out of Joss Whedon. So much, in fact, that we shouldn’t expect to see him helming any more Marvel movies in the future.

That’s not a shock, as Whedon had expressed a similar sentiment even before Avengers: Age of Ultron, citing the challenges of balancing fan expectations, his own artistic sensibilities and the necessary concessions made while working within the Disney/Marvel machine. Still, his video Q&A with Oxford Union, which you can see below, lays out his thoughts in more detail than ever.

Asked specifically about whether he’d even stay on in an advisory capacity for the MCU, Whedon made it pretty clear he needed to step away from it altogether:

"No. You know I was their sort of conciliary for a while… We do not discuss our thing… [audience laughter] But, I sort of had my finger in all of the films in the second phase, but then I just had to concentrate only on Ultron, and sort of know when it was done I was just going to stop. So I made a completely clean break – not because we had a falling out – just because I was like, “I can’t…” If I was still there going, “Well, here are my thoughts on this film,” I’d be there every day. I wouldn’t do anything else because there are a lot of films, and it is a lot of fun. It’s very seductive. When you can put your little fairy dust on things and just improve them slighty, and they actually listen to you… I was a script doctor for a long time, and the part where they listen to you was very rare; so it was very important for my own self to go “we can still be friends,” but …"

Truthfully, even the biggest Whedon and MCU fans will have to admit that both sides will be just fine without each other. Marvel has a strong hand at the helm in Kevin Feige and new go-to directing talent in the Russo brothers, who will tackle both parts of Avengers: Infinity War. And Whedon’s aforementioned supporters will follow him to any project he takes on in the future, something that has been proven in the past.

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Maybe he’ll even have time to write some more Marvel Comics. That would be the kind of compromise I’d happily support.

(via Cosmic Book News by way of Huffington Post)