Joss Whedon looks to be making a Batgirl movie and that is awesome

It has recently broken that Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy, Avengers and many other things that are good and holy has signed on to direct, write and produce a Batgirl movie for Warner Bros' DCEU. Now this report comes from Variety and their exact words are that "Whedon is nearing a deal..." which I suppose means that this is still up in the air, but given how much people are gibbering over it, it looks like it's less 'up in the air' like a helium balloon and more 'up in the air' like a paper airplane that's coming into land. That's enough for me to chime in with how excited I am about this.

I feel at this point that often when an article is written regarding the DCEU that there seems to be a semi-obligation to mention how crappy it has been so far. I'm not going to buck that trend here because, so far, DC's foray into love-action Marvel-aping filmmaking has been a hilarious yet depressing clusterfuck of asinine proportions: an example of what happens when you want to be like the biggest money-making studio of all-time but ignore one of their biggest lessons and rush right to your universe-crushing climax before barely setting anything up. Now, granted, disliking the DCEU is not a universal opinion to hold and I don't even speak for the whole NoDLC crew on BvS as it turns out that I'm the only one writing for this site that seems to think that movie was bad. But I find it hard to see how even those that are reasonably happy with DC's movies so far are content not to demand something more out of these movies. Man of Steel is boring, BvS is bad to the point where I found it absolutely fascinating (not really what I'd call high praise) and Suicide Squad is poorly made and aggressively mediocre to the point where caring about it seems like you're giving it too much of your time and effort. Don't you want more from these movies? Because, despite what just sounded like DC-hating Marvel-fanboyism, I do want DC's films to be good. I want the Justice League film to be good despite the trailer looking rough and I want Wonder Woman to be good as well. With news of Whedon's involvement, I have the biggest reason to hope yet that one of these things might actually be worthwhile.

Whedon's work in genre-fare has been pretty well established up until this point. He's already proven to have an incredible understanding of the comic-book genre, having helmed a renowned comic book run on X-Men (Astonishing X-Men) as well as, obviously, writing and directing the first Avengers film. The Avengers, in particular, I think is taken remarkably for granted today given the insane impact it has had on pop-culture and the film industry at large (love or hate that industry impact, it is still undeniable). That's not accounting for the unwieldy challenge that Whedon had to undertake (unite four characters - each big enough to sustain their own movies with differing genres - as well as a bunch more together into one movie) and yet still managed to overcome. Pile on top of that how much he understood every major character in that movie and I'm starting to think that it seems fairly clear how clear his understanding of the comic-book genre really is.

Which leads to the interesting choice of Batgirl as Whedon's selection for a return to comic-book movies. On the one hand, it is fairly obvious (not in a bad way) for Whedon to be helming a female-lead superhero film - take a look at his resumé if you somehow still don't get why that's evident. It's also interesting to note that Whedon has in the past proclaimed an interest in Batman, to the point where he discussed his plans for his own Batman movie (I also remember him saying at one point that he considered Batman a Marvel character in the DC universe. Can't find a link for that so don't quote me on this, but thought it was interesting enough to put here). Whilst Batgirl clearly isn't Batman (clue's in the name), it's incredibly close to that property.

On the other hand, this represents a move to DC. Now I'm not particularly interested in matters of 'defection' here because his time at Marvel was clearly finished. What is interesting is what this means in terms of creative control, because whilst the DCEU at first prided itself on being some sort of 'filmmaker's alternative' to Marvel, that doesn't really seemed to have panned out. Sure Zack Snyder's films are incredibly Snyder-y, but BvS' theatrical cut is mishandled to cut the movie down to under three hours and after the panning that movie received, it was fairly obvious to see where Suicide Squad was hacked down by the studio with a meat-cleaver in the editing room. Those films did fine at the box-office (who's besmirching a 872.7 million USD gross?) but Warner Bros. really wanted an Avengers level hit with that film and given the mounting critical lambasting these movies are getting, it looks like they're getting a lot more handsy with the filmmaking process than they initially proclaimed. Whedon famously cited some behind the scenes meddling on Age of Ultron as part of the reason for his dissatisfaction with his time on the film, so for him to sign over to the DCEU given their recent more meddling approach must mean that Whedon has some sort of assurance of creative control. If I was to speculate wildly WITHOUT INSIDER INFO (all-caps just to be sure you noticed), this might even be the reason that Whedon is 'nearing' a deal rather than 'at' a deal.

This probably/hopefully won't be too much of a problem for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Batgirl, whilst clearly an important and interesting character, hasn't got the as-yet proven box-office draw of Batman. There's no doubt that a Batgirl movie is going to put bums on seats, but Warner Bros. might not be as precious with the property as they are with their Batmans and their Supermans (I'd apologise for doing Batgirl a disservice with that kind of summary, but if I'm right about it then Batgirl should probably feel glad that she's less of a target for the DCEU's mangled editing process). Secondly and crucially, Joss Whedon directed the Avengers which was, for a time, the third highest grossing film ever and still the most successful superhero film to date. Warner Bros. has been clamouring for that kind of success in their projects and it would be really stupid for them to hire the guy responsible for that target goal and then not listen to him. Now, granted, the chances of Batgirl making Avengers money is relatively low, but still, why hire Joss Whedon of all people if you're then going to ignore the creative input he's offering.

So, assurances of creative input aside, a Whedon-helmed Batgirl movie is certainly nothing to roll your eyes at. Even as someone who likes Age of Utron seemingly more than quite a few others do, I'm excited for Whedon to have a go at a project that might be a bit more small-scale and, hopefully, one where he won't be as creatively reigned in. Between Whedon and the apparent courting of Mark Vaughn for a Superman film, Warner Bros. are making some moves on their future movies that I find quite interesting. Only time will tell if they are going to pay off.

#batgirl #josswhedon #dceu