Joss Whedon To Helm ‘Avengers’ TV Spin-Off For ABC
A Joss Whedon helmed SHIELD television spin-off has just been given the go-ahead by ABC.
No, this isn’t a musical reboot of FX’s The Shield starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as “Victoria Mackey,” a corrupt cop with both stones and pipes; this is a legitimate spin-off of Marvel’s successful film franchise, phase 1 of which culminated with this year’s superhero ensemble piece The Avengers. Cult-hero Joss Whedon was the brains and the pen behind the big-screen superhero adaptation, and; though he’s currently at work on Avengers 2: Electric Boogaloo, reports have alleged that Whedon has had his sights set on a spin-off chronicling the adventures of the super-secret government organization SHIELD depicted in the movie.
Though a SHIELD spin-off has been rumored for some time, Deadline reports that ABC has ordered a pilot episode, meaning that the concept won’t become a feature film but a TV series instead. The best piece of news here is that Joss Whedon himself will be writing and producing the series and possibly directing the pilot episode.
I wish that I could report that Samuel L. Jackson has signed on to reprise his role as Nick Fury, but sadly there are no reports of that just yet. Keep your fingers crossed.
In fact, there really isn’t any casting information at all, so we don’t know if Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Clark Gregg, or any other members of The Avengers cast will appear in the TV series or if it will fit within the canon of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at all. If they can’t manage to snag any of the film’s cast, they could always go the Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos route, casting a younger African-American actor as Fury and chronicling his days as a grunt or SHIELD’s origins and rise to prominence.
Either way, Whedon is a comic book nerd. He’ll know exactly what to do with a SHIELD TV spin-off. We just hope that this information is legitimate and not some ironic Whedonesque scam!
