Joss Whedon on why he made a clean break with Marvel

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

When Joss Whedon was brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe to write and direct THE AVENGERS, he also became a "creative consultant" on all of Marvel's Phase two films leading up to AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. This meant that he was on-hand to offer advice, punch up scripts, and, in Whedon's words, "put a little fairy dust on things." This took its toll on Whedon as he was obviously exhausted during the press-tour for AGE OF ULTRON. Joss Whedon then moved on from Marvel Studios and, despite reports of bad-blood between the two, claims that the split was amicable.

Joss Whedon spoke during a Q&A at Oxford Union last month and elaborated on why he felt like he needed to make a clean break from Marvel Studios.

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, that I was just going to stop. So I made a completely clean break — not because we had a falling out, just because if I was still there going, "Well, here are my thoughts on this film," I’d be there every day. I wouldn't do anything else, 'cause there's a lot of films and it's a lot of fun, it's very seductive, when you can just put a little fairy dust on things, just improve them slightly, and they actually listen to you. I was a script doctor for a long time and the part where they listen to you is very rare. It was important for me, for my own self, to go "we can still be friends."

In the end, Whedon's departure had to do with creating more challenges for himself and not staying too comfortable making giant Marvel movies for years to come, which is very understandable.

It 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, I  was very lucky, but It’s important to 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 think Steven Soderbergh during one of his "I’m retiring" moments said, ‘I’m finding the same solutions for problems. I found myself in the same way. I need to increase my vocabulary because I’m now at a place where enough people know what I do and I’ve done it enough where I could just sort of vaguely do that, and that is how you become old and obsolete. As an artist … I need to make it harder for myself, so I’m working on a few personal projects that I can’t describe. But I can tell you that they’re really hard, and I’m totally failing, and it feels great.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, the next film in the MCU, hits theaters on May 6, 2016.