Tonight, the Film Society of Lincoln Center hosted “An Evening with Joss Whedon,” which included a screening of his excellent modern dress adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
After the screening, which was met with rapturous applause, Whedon sat down on stage for a typically quippy Q&A session where he discussed bringing the film to the screen during a two-week “vacation” from making Marvel’s The Avengers, which later became the third-highest grossing movie of all time.
He also answered several questions from the audience that Whedonites will delight in, including continuing the “Firefly” saga, video games, the ballet he wants to make, the Quicksilver rights enigma, and his enthusiasm to one day take on (drumroll) Batman!
On continuing the “Firefly” universe
“Right now I’m happy to say everybody is working doing good jobs. There’s a real fear of ‘The Monkey’s Paw,’ you know? You bring it back to life and it isn’t the same. Even if it’s GREAT and it isn’t the same. I’m dying to get on a ship with those guys again, but I’m also doing yet another goddamn huge ensemble movie [‘The Avengers 2’]. Why can’t I do a movie about just one guy? So right now I can’t even access that part of my brain. If all the planets align that would be great, but I’m not going to do what I did the first time and move heaven and earth to make it happen.”
On what he’d like to conquer next in film or television
“Probably not film or television. There’s a ballet I’d like to do. The three people who’ll go see it will love it! I can’t really play any music and I want to do a full-length musical. There are books I want to write, so many things I’m excited about. There are more movies, obviously, more TV shows. I still haven’t written enough spaceship movies, I can’t get enough spaceships!”
On doing a video game movie
“I’ve been approached a few times and gone down the path a little bit but it’s never amounted to anything. I still don’t understand why they never made a ‘Firefly’ game because it lends itself to a massive multiplayer thingy with many ‘M’s I don’t know what it’s called! I’m old, look at me for God’s sake! I have reading glasses. But at first I wasn’t interested in video games because there really was no narrative, no character, no decision making, it was just ‘bang-bang,’ and that’s really changed, it’s become more and more interesting and more a form of storytelling that a lot of people are gravitating towards. The problem is I don’t play ’em. There’s video games, there’s a career, there’s a family, pick two. I never got the handle of them, as my nephews found out when they tried to play ‘Gears of War’ with me and suddenly I wasn’t the cool uncle ’cause I kept shooting them by accident.”
On Patton Oswalt’s now-famous Star Wars filibuster scene on “Parks & Recreation”
“A timeless piece of joy.”
On any Marvel character he wishes he could “do” (rephrased: to bring to some medium)
“If I could get my hands on absolutely anybody it would be Batman. (audience applause) He’s a Marvel character in the DC universe. And if I could ‘do’ any, probably Thor, because face it, those arms (laughs)”
On the nebulous cinematic rights to the character Quicksilver, and whether Bryan Singer’s decision to include him in “X-Men: Days of Future Past” will affect his inclusion in “Avengers 2″
“And so continues the Q and not-A That’s not something I can really talk about, but Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are going to be in the movie and they’re going to be AWESOME.”
Much Ado About Nothing opens on June 7. Thanks to John Wildman at Lincoln Center.
(Photo Credit: Bennett Raglin/WireImage/Getty Images)
