Joss Whedon

Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon, born June 23, 1964 is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures. He is best known as the creator and showrunner of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), Angel (1999–2004), Firefly (2002) and Dollhouse (2009–2010), as well as the short film Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008). Whedon wrote and directed the movie adaptation of Marvel's The Avengers which will be released in May 2012. He is also notable for his work in film, comic books, and online media. Many of Whedon's projects, as well as Whedon himself, enjoy cult status.


Following a move to Los Angeles, Whedon secured his first writing job on the television series Roseanne. After working several years as a script doctor for films, he returned to television, where he created four TV shows.


Years after having his script for the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer produced, Whedon revived the concept as a television series of the same name. Buffy the Vampire Slayer went on to become a critical and cult hit receiving an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series in 2000. Buffy ran for five seasons on The WB Television Network before being relocated to the UPN Network for its final two seasons. Angel was a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, featuring Buffy's vampire-with-a-soul ex-boyfriend as the title character. Debuting in September 1999 on the WB, Angel was broadcast following Buffy during its first two seasons. The WB canceled the show in February 2004 while it was in its fifth season.


Whedon wrote or co-wrote several films, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Toy Story, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Alien Resurrection and Titan A.E.. The song "My Lullaby" from The Lion King II: Simba's Pride was written by him and Seattle native Scott Warrender. He was nominated (along with six other writers) for an Academy Award for Toy Story's screenplay.
He also wrote uncredited drafts or rewrites of Speed, Waterworld, Twister and X-Men, although in interviews, Whedon disowned the latter three films.[citation needed]He claimed that he had a good script for Alien Resurrection, which he felt was spoiled by its director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. His Waterworld script was thrown out[citation needed], and only two of his lines were kept in the final script of X-Men. Even the Buffy movie bore little resemblance to his original screenplay. According to Graham Yost, the credited writer of Speed, Whedon wrote most of its dialogue.
He wrote and directed 2005's Serenity, based on his television series Firefly. Serenity won the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. Beginning in January 2006, fans (with Universal's blessing) began organizing worldwide charity screenings called "Can't Stop the Serenity" (CSTS), a play on a line in the film: "You can't stop the signal", to benefit Equality Now, a human rights organization supported by Joss Whedon. Over $500,000 has been raised for Equality Now since 2006. As of May 1, 2011, 45 cities were registered for CSTS 2011 in 6 countries and 24 U.S. states.


Whedon, a lifelong comic book fan, is the author of the Dark Horse Comics miniseries Fray which takes place in the far future of the Buffyverse. Whedon returned to the world of Fray during the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight arc, "Time of Your Life".
Like many other authors from the Buffy TV show, he also contributed to the show's comic book version: he wrote three stories in the anthology Tales of the Slayers (including one featuring Melaka Fray from Fray) and also the main storyline of the five-issue miniseries Tales of the Vampires.
The three-issue miniseries Serenity: Those Left Behind, based on the Firefly series and leading up to the film Serenity, was released June through August 2005. Co-written with Brett Matthews and pencilled by Will Conrad, the first issue featured covers drawn by John Cassaday, J.G. Jones, and Bryan Hitch, as well as other artists for the second and third issues. The first two issues went to a second printing. The trade paperback featured a new cover by acclaimed painter Adam Hughes.
A second three-issue Serenity miniseries Serenity: Better Days, was released in March, April, and May 2008. "Better Days" reunites Whedon, Matthews, Conrad, and Adam Hughes, who will provide all three covers. The three covers form a larger panorama of the ship's crew. "Better Days" is set before "Those Left Behind", and features the full crew of Serenity. A trade paperback featuring a cover by Jo Chen was released in October 2008.


The dialogue in Joss Whedon's shows and movies usually involves pop culture references both notable and obscure, and the turning of nouns into adjectives by adding a "y" at the end of the word ("listy"). According to one of the Buffy writers, "It's just the way that Joss actually talks.
Whedon also heavily favors the suffix -age (Linkage, Lurkage, Poofage, Postage, Scrollage, Slayage).[60] Also, phrasal verbs usually ending with "out" are changed into direct verbs, for example "freak" rather than "freak out", "bail" rather than "bail out", or "hang" rather than "hang out". Whedon also tends to change adjectives into nouns such as "happy", "shiny" (positive thing), "bad" (mistake), "funny" (joke) – for example, a character may say "I made a funny" instead of "I made a joke".[citation needed] So many of Whedon's altered usages, new words, and heavily popularized words have entered the common usage that PBS in their article series "Do You Speak American" included an entire section on "Slayer Slang".
In an issue of Buffy Season Eight where Buffy travels to the future, Whedon writes Buffy's reaction to the future dialect of Manhattan; this allows Whedon to comment on Buffy's distinctive style of dialogue. "Buffy blames herself for what's happened to the English language, and there's a lot of hubris in that joke. I like to think that adding Y's to words that don't usually have Y's is going to destroy the whole fabric of our society.
[edit]Spiritual and philosophical beliefs


Whedon has identified himself as an atheist on multiple occasions. When interviewed by The AV Club on October 9, 2002, Whedon answered the question "Is there a God?" with one word: "No." The interviewer followed up with: "That's it, end of story, no?" Whedon answered: "Absolutely not. That's a very important and necessary thing to learn. In one of the Buffy DVD commentaries, Whedon comments that "I don't believe in the 'sky bully'", referring to God under a name coined by his colleague Tim Minear. In addition, during a question and answer session found on the Serenity DVD with fans of the Firefly series at Fox Studios in Sydney, he identifies himself as an atheist and absurdist.
Whedon has also spoken about existentialism. On the Firefly DVD set, Whedon explains in detail how existentialism, and more specifically the book Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre, was used as a basis for the episode "Objects in Space". On this commentary he claimed interest in existential ideas and described the impact of Nausea on his early life.
Whedon also identifies himself as a humanist. In April 2009, the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard presented Whedon with the 2009 Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism.