Joss Whedon on his success

A beautiful note from Joss Whedon to the world, his admirers, and his past self, explaining what it feels like to have directed a movie that broke all box-office records for opening weekend:

What doesn't change is anything that matters. What doesn't change is that I've had the smartest, most loyal, most passionate, most articulate group of -- I'm not even gonna say fans. I'm going with "peeps" -- that any cult oddity such as my bad self could have dreamt of. When almost no one was watching, when people probably should have STOPPED watching, I've had three constants: my family and friends, my collaborators (often the same), and y'all. A lot of stories have come out about my "dark years", and how I'm "unrecognized"... I love these stories, because they make me seem super-important, but I have never felt the darkness (and I'm ALL about my darkness) that they described. Because I have so much. I have people, in my life, on this site, in places I've yet to discover, that always made me feel the truth of success: an artist and an audience communicating. Communicating to the point of collaborating. I've thought, "maybe I'm over; maybe I've said my piece". But never with fear. Never with rancor. Because of y'all. Because you knew me when. If you think topping a box office record compares with someone telling you your work helped them through a rough time, you're probably new here. (For the record, and despite my inhuman distance from the joy-joy of it: topping a box office record is super-dope. I'm an alien, not a robot.) So this is me, saying thank you. All of you. You've taken as much guff for loving my work as I have for over-writing it, and you deserve, in this our time of streaming into the main, to crow. To glow. To crow and go "I told you so", to those Joe Blows not in the know. (LAST time I hire Dr. Seuss to punch my posts up. Yeesh!) Point being, you deserve some honor, AND you deserves some FAQs answered. So please welcome my old friend and certainly not-on-my-payroll reporter/flunky, Rutherford D. Actualperson!

The Purple. (via Making Light)

(Image: Joss Whedon, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from 35266893@N08's photostream)

• [ehdubkay]

  beautiful.  now get over to Netflix to discuss Firefly.

  • [SpaceBeers]

    Exactly. You’re quite welcome. Now more Firefly please!

    • [Guysmiley]

      He covered that in a recent Reddit Ask Me Anything thread. Firefly’s gone, the stars have moved on to their own projects, it’s time to let go.

      I WOULD love to see something new set in that same world though… but there’s a real and huge risk of anything like that coming off as a pale shadow.

• [William Owen]

  My first thought walking out of Avengers is Joss Whedon is the biggest director on the planet right now. He can make ANYTHING HE WANTS and I fell to the floor having bliss convulsions.

  • [ocker3]

     I’ve said that a few times since seeing it and hearing the box office gross. If the producers are going to throw money at a director/writer/content creator, it’s people like Whedon who will actually do something worthwhile with it. Now that he’s got this momentum, there’s the potential for some Very interesting and entertaining things to be created

  • [John Smith]

    He deserves all the praise he’s getting and that was the main reason I was so happy at the money “The Avengers” has taken in already (it’s also a damn good movie).

  • [cpm5280]

    ….what’s on my mind, is that this is now Joss’ show, and as we all know, in a Joss show when things look great everything goes to shit. What’s going to happen? Hellmouth or reavers or whatever, it’ll be fun to watch.

• [billiamj]

  Did you really have to use his mugshot for the photo? 

  • [voiceinthedistance]

    That is a substantially better photo treatment  than the recent biography  of him featured on the cover.  No Cheetos smear, and a more sophisticated posterization effect.

• [Lord Byte]

  The man’s brilliance finally gets the recognition it so rightly deserves!

• [Romeo Vitelli]

  Not that this recognition will count for much with the Oscars.  Most likely he’ll get snubbed like he was routinely snubbed by the Emmy awards.

• [Jim Saul]

  Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Sincerely.

  If you want to know the man’s voice, listen to the director’s commentary on the last Firefly episode Objects in Space.

• [planettom]

  He’s having a pretty good year.   Obviously, a much smaller film, but CABIN IN THE WOODS was very favorably received. 

  • [Linley Lee]

     I am so annoyed at what they are doing with the Australian (non)release of that film

    • [Sebastian Spinczyk]

       Not just in Australia. Let us share the pain: Here in Germany, it’ll be August untill it hits the cinemas :(

  • [petz79]

     It opened here last week and I have to say, it’s one of the best genre films of the last years. I liked the Avengers, but Cabin In The Woods was an excellent and cleverly executed film.

• [Guest]

  When Spike stayed up all day watching Passions, he had me. 

• [redesigned]

  from that picture, he *COULD* be wearing a jedi robe.  not saying he is, but i’d like to think so.

• [unit_1421]

   I love it when I tell Browncoats that the Alliance on the show is actually the Tea Party and the crew of the Firefly are all liberals and their heads explode.

  • [Jeni Floyd]

    Cause you’re wrong.

    If you think about it, the Browncoats are the conservatives, they desire small government and like things just the way they are, thank you very much.  They are more like Libertarians than Republicans, they want the freedom to do business the way they see fit, on their own accord.

    Whereas the Alliance decided that they knew better, that they could MAKE people better. They wanted to unify everyone under one rule, one overreaching government where they felt they could achieve utopia. They’re the reformers, the ones who want to usher in sweeping change. 

    • [ocker3]

       The thing is, those labels don’t really apply to the modern American parties, Both of them want quite a lot of change, just in different areas of society. A Liberal agenda usually actually encourages Choice and options, but a Conservative one wants things to stay the same. And a Conservative isn’t the same as a Libertarian, even though those two forces have an unhappy marriage right now in the Republican party.

      The Alliance are the Conservatives, wanting things to stay the same, to keep control, while the rebels want the chance to do things their own way…

      In fact, I don’t think there’s really strong parralels that can’t be argued either way here, I think it’s mostly a Global Empire vs the disparate rebels, without any very strong links to modern political forces, or you’d have heard about it on Fox

      • [bengee]

        You guys should leave looking for political themes in space westerns to the sociology graduate students.

        Describing modern politics is like buying the right chew toy from  a herd of salescats. None of them can answer your questions and they’re all lying to you in ways that you may never pick up.

        My guess is that the Browncoats belong to the political party where you watch (well-written and highly enjoyable ) schlock television instead of taking out the garbage for your mom, that vanguard of the Alliance.

    • [Guest]

      I thought about it. I agree with @boingboing-d89bdf5c353a5be7da462c29e55a8d73:disqus more.

      They are not Libertarians wanting the freedom to do business the way they see fit. The captain maybe, but the rest of them very much depend on the formal rules of the civilization they are a part of. Even the escaped convict/mutant, looking to gather evidence of their innocence, so they may stay within the system.

• [Jellodyne]

  Wait, is Joss that really smart guy who made that recent blockbuster action movie with the terrific ensemble cast which totally underutilized Jeremy Renner, or was that Brad Bird?

• [Arys]

  Still haven’t forgiven him for Season 7 of Buffy… sorry.

• [Michael Birch]

  [bra falls off] Mr Whedon.. will you gay marry me?  … … …

• [D]

  The Brown coats are waiting…