By Travis Johnson
In an interview with Complex, geek godhead Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Avengers, c’mon, you know who he is) revealed that he would not be averse to taking a trip to a certain far, far away galaxy.
Asked whether his Marvel experiences had put him off big franchise filmmaking, Whedon said, “I mean, it’s a fun thing to do, to put yourself in the service of something if you think you can add an interpretation. It’s no different than any other storytelling. There are some times when you get micro-managed to death but with Marvel, they let me make two movies that were very much mine. So do I want to make James Bond movie? Yeah. Anne Hathaway does Catwoman again? Sure, I’m in. Do I want to make a Star Wars movie? Yeah. I was like, ‘I don’t want to make a Star Wars movie. Like, god dammit, why?’ But I saw the trailer for Rogue awhile ago and I was like, ‘I want to do that.’ To make a Star Wars movie and not be wed to the bigger picture.”
So, there’s a few things we can take away from this. One is that, flying in the face of the received wisdom that Whedon had a terrible time on Age of Ultron, he describes the film as “very much mine”, nonsensical Thor dream sequence and all. Two is that Whedon is interested in playing in the extended “A Star Wars Story” sandpit rather than the ongoing “Skywalker Family” central story spine, which is understandable – you always get more room to breathe on the fringes.
This is cool. the next couple of main Star Wars movies already have directors locked in (Rian “yay!” Johnson and Colin “if we must…” Trevorrow) and Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Han Solo movie is only a skerrick away from the main saga, so it’s Rogue One we must look at to auger the future of the franchise. If Rogue One is a smash hit, we can expect a much wilder and more diverse Star Wars going forward, with filmmakers given more rein when playing in the margins of the galaxy. If it crashes and burns (doubtful) or under-performs by the current box office standards (who knows?) then look forward to tighter studio control and a lot more Jedi and Skywalkers going forward.
