So amidst some personal scrambling and a technical mishap, it's been entirely too long since I've posted a legitimate story here, so here's one that's about as big as it comes. (Hint: take a look at the far right.)

Yeah, so I said I wouldn't believe it till I heard it from Joss's mouth, and now I have. At Comic-Con 2010, Joss was the belle of the ball with a panel paired up with the other beloved genre tv god, JJ Abrams, a panel of just him talking, and a little attended shindig with a handful of stars... He came out right from the beginning confirming his directing and discussed a lot about his plans for the movie which I'll leave you to view yourself, but the point is... Joss Whedon is in fact directing the Avengers.

He is writing the script as well, which we should all be psyched for, but he's adapting a previously written script. Just be prepared that this is a big studio film, not a Joss Whedon film. It's not going to be promoted as Joss Whedon's Avengers, he's not going to have free reign over who he kills or how the action plays out. Very likely, the villains, storyline, and even action sequences are already planned out, he's just there to deliver Marvel's vision of the story. That said, things are moving ahead much more smoothly than they seemed to be back when he was writing Wonder Woman, and production is slated to start early in 2011. It will be shot in 3D, which I think we all knew would happen, but even Joss (in the JJ Abrams panel) isn't in love with the gimmicky nature of 3D. You can be sure he's not going to abuse the technology.

Another bit to celebrate is that Joss is one of very few writer/directors who have successfully made stuff with as many characters as Avengers will have. The team itself is supposed to have Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, Captain America, Nick Fury... and those are just the confirmed major roles. It's not easy to cram so many larger than life characters into one story, but Firefly had 9 characters, each of whom could support a show of their own. All told, here's why he's going to be perfect for this film: "These people shouldn't even be in the same room together, let alone on a team; isn't that the definition of family?"

The best thing to describe Joss's stance on doing this film (and putting Dr. Horrible 2 on the back burner... yes, that's confirmed too) I've heard so far was during one of his panels where Joss said (roughly, I can't seem to find the exact quote at the moment) that there are two things that excite him: taking nothing and making it into something, and having all the resources to make something great. He said he's done the first thing already, now he want's to do something where he can have anything he wants! Who wouldn't? His works have created worlds that we all embraced and have created our own community out of. Firefly tried to make a sweeping epic science fiction world out of less money than Charlie Sheen gets paid per episode! Serenity was made for $40 million. Estimates put Iron Man at at least $140 million. Some predictions are putting the budget of Avengers at over $240 million! That's a lot of toys for a director to play with! Considering Joss has spent his entire career making every cent count, just imagine what he could do with that kind of dough!