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Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon (; born June 23, 1964) is an Academy Award-nominated and Hugo Award winning American writer, director, executive producer, occasional actor, and creator and head writer of the well-known television programs Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse. He has also written several film scripts and comic book series.
on was born in New York City. He has been described as the world's first third-generation TV writer, as he is the son of Tom Whedon, a successful screenwriter for The Electric Company in the 1970s and The Golden Girls in the 1980s, and the grandson of John Whedon, a writer for The Donna Reed Show in the 1950s.
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Quotations
You can either watch TV or you can make TV.
Underground Online, interview by Michael Patrick Sullivan
I'm working on 'Buffy: Deep Space Nine. It will be dark and badly received.
Entertainment Weekly Angel TV Preview (Published in issue 727-728 Sep 12, 2003)
My visions of the future are always pretty much standard issue. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and there are flying cars.
TV Guide, 27 December – 2 January, 2004, Foreword to Fray
If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.
From Angel. Also mentioned in the DVD commentary for the Firefly episode, Objects in Space.
Encyclopedia
Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon (; born June 23, 1964) is an Academy Award-nominated and Hugo Award winning American writer, director, executive producer, occasional actor, and creator and head writer of the well-known television programs Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse. He has also written several film scripts and comic book series.
Early life
Whedon was born in New York City. He has been described as the world's first third-generation TV writer, as he is the son of Tom Whedon, a successful screenwriter for The Electric Company in the 1970s and The Golden Girls in the 1980s, and the grandson of John Whedon, a writer for The Donna Reed Show in the 1950s. His mother, Lee Stearns, was a high school teacher and novelist. After finishing at Winchester College in England, he went on to receive a film degree from Wesleyan University in 1987.
Career
Television work
Following a move to Los Angeles, Whedon secured his first writing job on the television series Roseanne. After several years as a script doctor for films, he returned to television, where he created four TV shows.
Years after having his script for the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer produced – the interpretation by director Fran Rubel Kuzui having been poorly received by critics and audiences – Whedon revived the concept as a television series of the same name. Buffy the Vampire Slayer went on to become a critical and cult hit. Its episode "Hush," which was written and directed by Whedon, received an Emmy Award nomination for outstanding writing in a drama series in 2000. The show ran for five seasons on The WB Network before being relocated to the UPN Network for its final two seasons, after a bidding war for the broadcast rights. Though it premiered on Mondays at 9 pm, Buffy ran from the middle of the second season on Tuesdays at 8 pm.
Angel was a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, featuring Buffy's vampire-with-a-soul boyfriend as the title character. It was created by Whedon with Buffy writer David Greenwalt. Tim Minear also contributed at essential key junctures. Debuting in September 1999 on the WB, the show was broadcast following Buffy on Tuesday evenings. After Buffy switched networks in 2001, Angel aired in a number of different time slots, and occasionally managed to attain and surpass the ratings of its predecessor. The series finale pulled in more viewers than the Buffy finale. Joss Whedon made a cameo appearance as the character 'Numfar' near the middle of its run. The WB canceled the show in February 2004 while it was in its fifth season. While Whedon had no intention of ending Angel, the WB felt that a reality show would bring in more viewers, forcing Whedon to change the arc and ending of both the final season and the series. The forced cancellation triggered numerous "Save Angel" campaigns and other similar Angel support groups. Thousands rallied to send in postcards, flowers, dolls and other items to the network and media, along with raising money for advertising in support of Angel returning for another season.
In 2002, FOX canceled Firefly, which Whedon produced with Tim Minear. Only 11 of 14 episodes were aired, many out of intended order — the original two-hour pilot ("Serenity") was aired last. After the cancellation, Whedon wrote the script for a Firefly movie, titled Serenity. Excellent DVD sales ensured the movie would be produced, and in early 2004 Whedon announced that it had been greenlit by Universal Studios. Shooting started in July 2004, and the film went into wide release in the United States on September 30, 2005. In the DVD release, Whedon discusses how Serenity would not have been made if not for the dedication of Browncoats, the fans of the series.
In August 2007, Eliza Dushku with whom Whedon worked on Buffy and Angel signed a development deal with FOX. Shortly afterwards, Dushku and Whedon met over lunch to discuss possible ideas for a series for her. During the meal, he came up with an idea which excited both of them, and Whedon agreed then to write and oversee the pilot airing on FOX. Whedon announced that he will be working with "a completely new bunch of people" who are "intelligent and supportive." The show, Dollhouse, was announced by Fox in November 2008 to begin airing on February 13, 2009. When asked about returning to Fox, Whedon stated, "These are different people [...] they didn't do to me what was done to Firefly." Since Firefly, Fox has come under new management and former NBC executive Kevin Reilly has taken over as President of Entertainment.
Whedon is revered as one of the more influential figures in sci-fi and fantasy TV programming. He has been described as "an object of worship for viewers who like their television smart and funny and transcendent." J. J. Abrams states:
"Joss’ storytelling is always that perfect storm of wit, deep emotion and passion for genre. His brilliant characters make familiar territory brand spanking new—and damn if he can’t write a catchy song, too."
Whedon finds that television offers greater storytelling opportunities than online media and movies:
"The fact is, network TV has something to offer the other mediums don’t. ...[With] a TV show, you get to examine a story, if you’re lucky, for a really long time. And that in some ways is the most rewarding kind of storytelling—when you turn something over in your palm and look at it again and again and find new things to say about it. I love that structure … that opportunity to play with (characters) for so long."
However, he has also had a number of planned television projects that have become stuck in development or terminally stalled. Among these was a Buffy animated series, a set of made-for-television movies for The WB based on Angel and Buffy characters, and Ripper, a proposed BBC pilot about Rupert Giles. Ripper was announced to be in development at the San Diego Comic-Con 2007. The development process was set to begin in 2008 and Ripper to be shown that summer.
He directed the 2007 episodes of The Office entitled "Business School" and "Branch Wars". He appeared as an overbearing rental-car service manager in a second season episode of Veronica Mars called "Rat Saw God".
He voiced himself in two episodes of Robot Chicken entitled "Rabbits on a Roller Coaster" (2007) and "Help Me" (2008).
Feature films
Whedon wrote or co-wrote several films, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Toy Story, Alien: Resurrection and Titan A.E.. He was nominated (along with three other writers) for an Academy Award for Toy Storys screenplay.
He also wrote uncredited drafts or rewrites of Speed, Waterworld, Twister and X-Men—although, with the exception of Speed, little of Whedon's work remained in the final drafts of any of these screenplays. In interviews, Whedon disowned the latter three films. He claimed that he had a good script for Alien: Resurrection, which he felt was spoiled by its director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. His Waterworld script was thrown out, and only two of his lines were kept in the final script of X-Men. Even the Buffy movie bore little resemblance to his original screenplay. According to Graham Yost, the credited writer of Speed, Whedon wrote most of its dialogue (see examples of credit conflicts in the WGA credit system).
He wrote and directed 2005's Serenity, based on his television series Firefly. Serenity won the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. Beginning in January 2006, fans (with Universal's blessing) began organizing worldwide charity screenings of Serenity to benefit Equality Now, a human rights organization supported by Joss Whedon. Over $250,000 has been raised for Equality Now since 2006. 2009's goal is to raise $155,000.
Whedon had been signed to write and direct Warner Bros.' adaptation of Wonder Woman but on February 3, 2007, Whedon announced that he would no longer be involved with the project. "We just saw different movies, and at the price range this kind of movie hangs in, that's never gonna work. Non-sympatico. It happens all the time."
For a number of years, he has been working on Goners, a supernatural thriller which has gone through several script rewrites. The movie has not currently been greenlit for production by Universal Pictures, which bought the script from Whedon around the time Serenity came out. In late June 2007, Whedon told a New Zealand radio station that "It's a supernatural thriller that I'm trying to get the studio to make. I'm rewriting it again. And it's a slow process, and after working in TV for a while, slow processes are a little frustrating."
One aspect of the storyline of the film X-Men: The Last Stand bears a strong similarity to a plotline in Whedon's comic book Astonishing X-Men: the notion of a cure for mutation. The scientist who discovers the cure in the movie is named Dr. Kavita Rao, as is the scientist in the comic book storyline, though the characters are quite different. Whedon's story in turn bears a striking resemblance to a 1993 episode of the X-Men animated series, entitled "The Cure", written by Mark Edward Edens. In both Whedon's and Edens' stories, the scientist who claims to have discovered the cure is secretly working with a superpowered enemy of the team (Apocalypse on the TV show, Ord in the comic book), a plot device that doesn't occur in the film script. According to Simon Kinberg, a studio executive who had read Whedon's comics asked him and Zak Penn to incorporate some version of the mutant cure idea into their script.
In a 2005 interview with Empire Online, Whedon expressed an interest in directing a Harry Potter movie, being a fan of the book series. He has written several Harry Potter-related jokes in his stories.
Whedon wrote a horror film entitled The Cabin in the Woods with Drew Goddard which has been greenlighted by MGM for production, with Goddard set to direct. He called it "The horror movie to end all horror movies... literally."
Comic books
Whedon, a lifelong comic book fan, is the author of the Dark Horse Comics miniseries Fray which takes place in the far future of the Buffyverse. Although the miniseries took years to finish, it was a great success. Whedon returned to the world of Fray during the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight arc, "Time of Your Life".
Like many other authors from the Buffy TV show, he also contributed to the show's comic book version: he wrote three stories in the anthology Tales of the Slayers (including one featuring Melaka Fray from Fray) and also the main storyline of the five-issue miniseries Tales of the Vampires.
The three-issue miniseries Serenity: Those Left Behind, based on the Firefly series and leading up to the film Serenity, was released June through August 2005. Co-written with Brett Matthews and pencilled by Will Conrad, the first issue featured covers drawn by John Cassaday, J.G. Jones, and Bryan Hitch, as well as other artists for the second and third issues. The first two issues went to a second printing. The trade paperback featured a new cover by acclaimed painter Adam Hughes.
A second three-issue Serenity miniseries Serenity: Better Days, was released in March, April, and May 2008. "Better Days" reunites Whedon, Matthews, Conrad, and Adam Hughes, who will provide all three covers. The three covers form a larger panorama of the ship's crew. "Better Days" is set before "Those Left Behind", and features the full crew of Serenity. A trade paperback featuring a cover by Jo Chen is scheduled for release in October.
Whedon has mentioned that more Serenity comics are planned for the near future, and will be based in the Firefly continuation of the series, including one about Shepherd Book. Likewise, Whedon and other former Buffy writers have released a new ongoing Buffy which takes place after the series finale "Chosen", which he officially recognizes as the canonical "Season 8". The first issue was released on March 14, 2007 by Dark Horse Comics. Following the success of issue one of Buffy season eight, IDW Publishing approached Whedon about similarly producing a canonical Angel Season 6. Angel: After the Fall has 14 issues published as of November 19, 2008 with 3 more to come following the adventures of Angel and his team after the TV series ended, where the title of the series will then change to Angel: Aftermath. Although Whedon has not had the time to write the series he has served as executive producer with Brian Lynch writing the season 6 story.
Whedon wrote Astonishing X-Men in Marvel Comics' popular line of comics about the X-Men but finished his 25 issue run in 2008 and handed over the writing reins to Warren Ellis. The title, recreated specifically for Whedon, has been one of Marvel's best-selling comics as of 2006 and was nominated for several Eisner Awards including Best Serialized Story, Best Continuing Series, Best New Series and Best Writer, winning the Best Continuing Series award in 2006. One storyline from this comic, the notion of a cure for mutation being found, was also an element in the third X-Men film, X-Men: The Last Stand. Whedon also introduced several new characters into the Marvel Universe such as the villainous Ord, new Xavier's Institute students Ruth "Blindfold" Aldine and Hisako "Armor" Ichiki , and Special Agent Abigail Brand, along with S.W.O.R.D., the organization she commands.
Whedon is the second writer of the critically acclaimed and fan-favorite Marvel comic Runaways, taking over after series creator Brian K. Vaughan completed his run. Whedon had been a fan of the series for some time, and had a letter published in the first volume, which was included in the Volume 1 hardcover.
Whedon's other comic-related work includes writing the introduction to Identity Crisis trade paperback and a contribution to the "jam issue" Superman/Batman #26 (to date his only published work for DC Comics), writing short pieces for Marvel's Stan Lee Meets Spider-Man and Giant-Size X-Men #3 and also being the subject of an issue of Marvel Spotlight (alongside artist Michael Lark).
Recently one of Whedon's comics (astonishing X-men #6) was named the 65th best marvel comic of all time. This story capped off Whedon's first X-arc and brought Colossus back into the X-verse.
Online media
In 2005 Whedon released a series of online shorts titled the R. Tam sessions, starring himself and Summer Glau. They acted as a form of viral marketing for Serenity.
In 2007, Whedon launched a free webcomic, titled Sugarshock! hosted on Dark Horse comic's Myspace page.
In March 2008, Whedon teamed up with his brothers Zack Whedon and Jed Whedon, along with Jed's fiance Maurissa Tancharoen to write, compose and produce the musical superhero spoof, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. The musical stars Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day. Whedon conceived of Dr. Horrible over the year before and production took place over seven days during the Writers Guild strike. The project was freely available online from July 15 until July 20. It is currently viewable for free (USA only and with brief commercials), on . It is also available on iTunes, and for DVD purchase.
In August 2008, Whedon released a new Serenity/Firefly comic free online Serenity: The Other Half.
In September 2008, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Soundtrack made the top 40 Album list despite being a digital exclusive only available on iTunes.
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog pays its crew and all its bills.
On November 28th, 2008, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along blog DVD became available for pre-ordering. On November 29th, 2008, Tubefilter reports that pre-orders of Dr. Horrible DVD are "booming".
Whedon states that he wants to "keep exploring the idea of the independent producer on the Internet," as he feels that non-aligned producers have been largely "drummed out of TV."
In November 2008, Whedon guest starred in the premiere episode of The Write Environment, a direct to DVD series featuring in-depth, candid one-on-one interviews with some of TV's most prolific and well known series creator/writers.
Whedon is a regular guest at Whedonesque.com, which New York Magazine describes as one of the Net's most powerful online fan communities.
Common themes and motifs in Whedon's works
Feminism
Whedon identifies himself as a feminist, and feminist themes are common in his work. For his part, Whedon credits his mother, Lee Stearns, as the inspiration for his feminist worldview. When Roseanne Barr asked him how he could write so well for women, he replied, "If you met my mom, you wouldn't ask."
The character Kitty Pryde from the X-Men comics was an early model for Whedon's strong teenage girl characters: "If there's a bigger influence on Buffy than Kitty, I don’t know what it was. She was an adolescent girl finding out she has great power and dealing with it."
Whedon was honored at an Equality Now benefit in 2006: "Honoring Men on the Front Lines", and his fans raised a considerable amount of money in support of the organization.
Dialogue
The dialogue in Joss Whedon's shows and movies usually involves pop culture references both notable and obscure, and the turning of nouns into adjectives by adding a "y" at the end of the word ("listy"). According to one of the Buffy writers, "It's just the way that Joss actually talks."
Whedon also heavily favors the suffix -age (Linkage, Lurkage, Poofage, Postage, Scrollage, Slayage). Also, phrasal verbs usually ending with "out" are changed into direct verbs, for example "freak" rather than "freak out", "bail" rather than "bail out", or "hang" rather than "hang out". Whedon also tends to change adjectives into nouns such as "happy" (positive thing), "bad" (mistake), "funny" (joke). So many of Whedon's altered usages, new words, and heavily popularized words have entered the common usage that PBS in their article series "Do You Speak American" included an entire section on "Slayer Slang".
Spiritual and philosophical beliefs
Whedon has identified himself as an atheist on multiple occasions. When interviewed by The AV Club on October 9, 2002, Whedon answered the question "Is there a God?" with one word: "No." The interviewer followed up with: "That's it, end of story, no?" Whedon answered: "Absolutely not. That's a very important and necessary thing to learn." In one of the Buffy DVD commentaries, Whedon comments that "I don't believe in the 'sky bully'", referring to God. In addition, during a question and answer session found on the Serenity DVD with fans of the Firefly series at Fox Studios in Sydney, he identifies himself as an atheist and absurdist.
Whedon has also spoken about existentialism. On the Firefly DVD set, Whedon explains in detail how existentialism, and more specifically the book Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre, was used as a basis for the episode Objects in Space. On this commentary he claimed interest in existential ideas and described the impact of Nausea on his early life.
Whedon also identifies himself as a humanist. In February 2009, the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard announced that he will receive the 2009 Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism. Whedon will give a short speech at the ceremony which will take place on April 10.
Awards
Awards Won
Nebula Awards:
Hugo Awards:
Eisner Awards:
Prometheus Award
Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard:
- Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism (2009)
Awards Nominated
Academy Awards:
Emmy Awards:
Nebula Awards:
Saturn Awards:
External links
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