Two of DC Comics’ most recognizable heroes have had changes to their upcoming movies in the past week.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon announced Friday that he will no longer be writing and directing the Wonder Woman movie. Joss announced the news on his blog and explained that everyone at Warner Brothers Studio and Silver Pictures were very professional but that they just decided to go another direction.
Joss Whedon is most well known for creating and directing the television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel. Buffy’s main theme was always about women empowerment. Joss Whedon is also a big comic book fan and he once admitted that Buffy was actually based on X-Men character Kitty Pryde. Whedon is now writing Astonishing X-Men (and therefore now writing Kitty Pryde’s character) and will also be soon writing Runaways. With Whedon’s women empowerment themes and love of comics it made him a natural fit to write and direct a movie about a strong woman comic book hero. Unfortunately it was taking Whedon a long time to hammer out a script and Warner Brothers decided to go a different route.
Warner Bros and Silver Pictures instead bought a Wonder Woman script from newcomers Matthew Jennison and Brent Strickland.
Meanwhile another DC icon was undergoing changes as well. On the same day that Joss Whedon announced he is no longer on the Wonder Woman movie, David Goyer announced on his blog that he is no longer writing and directing the Flash.
David Goyer has had success with comic book characters before. Goyer adapted the highly popular Blade screenplay in 1998 and then in 2005 Goyer scripted Batman Begins. Blade and Batman Begins are considered by many to be among the better comic book movies. Goyer also adapted the short-lived Nick Fury television movie, both Blade sequels, and has a hand in the scripts for the next Batman movie, the upcoming Ghost Rider movie and upcoming Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, Thor and Captain America movies. However, Warner Bros did not like the direction that Goyer’s script was going.
The Flash will now be directed by Shawn Levy. Levy most recently helmed Night at the Museum starring Ben Stiller. Before that Levy worked on Cheaper by the Dozen and the Pink Panther. Levy has said that he does not plan to make The Flash a comedy but he does plan on making the movie lighter than recent movies like Batman Begins and Superman and lighter than Goyer’s version of the script.
