Joss Whedon – Director’s Link to Star Wars Episode IX “Dodgy”

Joss Whedon has said that he is done with the Avengers after directing The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Last week, Whedon even bailed on Twitter, saying that he needed to concentrate on writing. Last week, Disney and Lucasfilm apparently ousted Josh Trank, the director set to helm the second Star Wars Anthology film, which is now confirmed to center around the notorious galactic bounty hunter, Boba Fett. Somehow, all that information has appeared to get at least a part of the nerd-verse assuming that Joss Whedon is headed out of the pages of comic books and into the stars.

One source, MoviePilot.com, even posted an article that confirmed that Joss Whedon was set to direct Star Wars Episode IX based on a podcast that mentioned Joss Whedon as a Star Wars director, but did not confirm it. In fact, the GYGO (or Get Your Geek On) podcast with David Gremillion even went out of its way to say that their hopes for Joss Whedon to direct a Star Wars project were just that and nothing more.

However, the Movie Pilot story got some traction, prompting site editors to post this disclaimer as a header.

“It has come to our attention that multiple sites have picked up this story [Joss Whedon is Directing Star Wars Episode IX] and quoted Moviepilot as the source. However, this is an independent, unverified creator post and does not reflect the views or writing of the Moviepilot staff.”

GYGO jumped on board, and posted the following on their Facebook page.

“*sigh* Anyone who actually HEARD the show on May the 4th knows that GYGO **NEVER** said Joss Whedon would direct Episode IX…..
…..we said it would be a Darth Revan movie.
Let’s get our facts straight, shall we? ~DG~”

That post was then commented on by David Edward Cooper, the author of the post on Movie Pilot.

“I changed it to Episode IX in the article because making it dodgy as hell was part of the point.”

And so it goes.

Considering the amount of fandom surrounding not only the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and Joss Whedon as a director makes one wonder why this sort of thing doesn’t happen more often. The internet rumor mill can grow like wildfire, and the amount of speculation concerning things like Joss Whedon, Star Wars, Marvel, Jurassic World, Indiana Jones et. al, is at a fever pitch now more than ever.

Will Chris Pratt be the next Indiana Jones? Will Joss Whedon direct Star Wars Episdode IX? Will the third Star Wars anthology film be about Yoda or a young Han Solo? Will there be a standalone Planet Hulk film? This is all great fun to think about, but we have to be careful when we read a headline like ‘Joss Whedon Confirmed For Star Wars Episode IX.’

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images