Following his blockbuster success with 2012’s The Avengers, Marvel Studios tapped Joss Whedon as “creative consultant”, giving him input on the Phase Two slate of films, as well as executive producing Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and of course, helming the Avengers follow-up Avengers: Age of Ultron.
However, Whedon has now handed over the reins of the Avengers franchise to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War helmers Anthony and Joe Russo for the two-part Avengers: Infinity War, and now the fan favourite filmmaker has confirmed during a Q&A that he’s “made a completely clean break” from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
“I’ve gone off the reservation for a while,” said Whedon (via Comic Book). It was five years that I was working on either Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D.. That was an enormous gift they gave me; they handed me several hundreds of millions of dollars and said ‘do what you do,’ which is very rare and I was very lucky. At the same time, it’s important for me not just to have my own thing and do something smaller, but also to create a new challenge for myself because I will start to repeat myself. I was their sort of consigliere for a while…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 that when it was done, I was just going to stop, so I made a completely clean break.”
Are you disappointed that Whedon is no longer involved with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or is it the right move for both parties? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=dCAkjUgLFmg
Originally published January 3, 2016. Updated April 12, 2018.
