Could the man that cemented Marvel as a powerhouse in movies really be leaving? It seems likely after his second feature with the company, Avengers: Age of Ultron hits theaters this spring.
Joss Whedon spoke with Buzzfeed on Friday to clarify comments he made earlier about the end of his time at Marvel and whether he would consider directing the upcoming Captain Marvel for the comic book juggernaut. While Whedon didn’t want to set his departure in stone, he clearly seems to be leaning towards leaving the company following this year’s Age of Ultron.
“I would never rule anything out, because I like working here. By the same token, the biggest thing for me is that I need to do something that I create myself. It’s been way too long since I created a universe,” Whedon said. “The last thing I did before The Avengers was [directing an episode of] Glee, and in between I did Much Ado About Nothing. So I haven’t created my own universe for over five years. That feels wrong. You know, my own universe might be a book of haiku. I’m not necessarily saying I’ve got a grand scheme.”
After wrangling multiple superhero personalities in two of his recent films, Whedon added that he wants to focus on one protagonist again whenever he begins work on his next project. “One person. Can’t stress that enough. Movie about one person — not a team, not 10, just one. But [I would] do a nice sort of hard action movie that combined all my favorite things,” he said.
“Something that would be the love child of Sam Fuller and Edward Gorey. You know, I’ve had many thoughts since then. Oh, I could do this! Oh, I could do that! But it is my instinct to want to tell those stories.”
It makes sense that Whedon would want to leave. Since 2009, he has been working strictly at Marvel with a small amount of time to work on other projects such as Much Ado About Nothing (that film was famously shot at Whedon’s home with a collection of his friends in just 12 days while working on The Avengers), but he has yet to really dive into his own, fully original project in some time, and clearly his work on TV with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t satisfy his appetite much.
It will be great to see Whedon doing more original work, and Marvel won’t have to worry, as most of the rumors have pinned Captain America: Winter Soldier and upcoming Civil War directors Anthony and Joe Russo as the names that the studio is looking at to take over for Whedon with Avengers: Infinity Wars, which will be a two-part epic.