Brian's note 9/25/2023: In the years since this post was published on this blog, various accusations have been made about Joss Whedon. Because he was involved with the creation of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I cannot remove everything related to him that I previously shared, but I can minimize his presence on this blog. I have chosen not to restore the photo of him that originally illustrated this post, after the original link to it became broken. I am leaving this interview excerpt here, but I am not going to restore the link with the Internet Archive backup.
This time you’re returning to TV with Marvel, the 800-pound hulk, backing you up. How has this experience been different?Full interview here.
There’s a certain amount of trust with the Marvel brass. It doesn’t mean carte blanche, nor should it. Because they’re not watching me as carefully, because I don’t have to justify what I want to do to them, I have to make sure I can justify it to myself. So I’m not just going “This sounds cool and nobody says I can’t, so wheeeeee, look at me fail!”
S.H.I.E.L.D. follows the Rosencrantzes and Guildensterns of the Marvel universe, these government agents on the sidelines of the action. What appealed to you about that?
Anybody who’s ever seen one of my shows knows I love the ensembles; I love the peripheral characters. This is basically a TV series of “The Zeppo” [an episode of Buffy], which was a very deliberate deconstruction of a Buffy episode in order to star the person who mattered the least. The people who are ignored are the people I’ve been writing as my heroes from day one. With S.H.I.E.L.D., the idea of [Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson] as the long-suffering bureaucrat who deals with Tony Stark’s insufferability is delightful and hits the core of something I’m also writing about all the time—the little guy versus the big faceless organization. Now, somebody might point out, “But isn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. a big faceless organization?” It absolutely is, and that’s something we’re going to deal with in the series. But what’s really interesting to me is there’s a world of super-heroes and superstars, they’re celebrities, and that’s a complicated world—particularly complicated for people who don’t have the superpowers, the disenfranchised. Now, obviously there’s going to be high jinks and hilarity and sex and gadgets and all the things that made people buy the comics. But that’s what the show really is about to me, and that’s what Clark Gregg embodies: the Everyman.
I asked [Marvel TV head Jeph Loeb how much independence do the S.H.I.E.L.D. writers have to create their own show, and he said, "Marvel isn't a library book you take out, it's a partnership." And I'm all, "That sounds like not very much!"
Marvel is the least restrictive studio environment I've ever experienced, across the board. I probably wouldn't be back if that wasn't the case. It is genuinely a mom-and-pop mega-store.
Did ABC give you notes?
Yeah. They gave me a ton of notes. We've jumped through every hoop. There's no trust in television. But there's been nothing but encouragement and excitement about what exactly you're trying to do. So you take the notes. You don't take all of them. But you never walk in expecting not to get any.
Is finally having a show that’s a hit in the ratings important to you?
No. I mean, I want it to be a hit because people who I work for have invested in it, and people I work with are in it, and writing it, and I want it to continue. We have the opportunity to do something special. If it’s not special, hopefully it will go away. I think we’ll be okay there. But I can’t measure it in those terms. It doesn’t seem useful to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment