Complication Or Opportunity?

On 13 March 2008 with No Comments

First, the latest draft was not incredibly well-received. Then, there was the low quietly-distressed moan. And now?

Variety is reporting that Mary Parent, former vice chair of worldwide production at Universal Pictures (and then the Parent in Stuber/Parent) and the person interested in Goners, has taken a new position at MGM.

Of course, most of this is academic at this point, since Joss is focusing on getting Dollhouse up and running. Nonetheless, it seemed an item of note.

Addendum: There’s more at the Goners Blog and some discussion at WHEDONesque.

So, What Is Goners?

On 5 February 2008 with No Comments

For those who might not know, Goners is a screenplay by Joss Whedon which was bought by Universal Pictures but has not yet been greenlit for production.

If you want to know something about its premise, see our Joss on Goners page, which compiles pretty much everything he’s ever said on that point. It’s also likely that very little will be added to that page, since in November of 2006 and then again in August of 2007, Joss has indicated that perhaps enough already has been said about it.

We agree, which is why we make the Joss On Goners page available: Anything about the film’s premise that Joss might want to reveal in essence already has been revealed and is available without him having to say of any of it again.

The trick now, as mentioned previously, is to get Universal to greenlight the film, so we can focus on the details of its production, rather than on its premise.

A Gentle Nudge?

On 3 February 2008 with No Comments

Despite — or perhaps due to — reports from last year’s Mutant Enemy Day on the Writers Guild of America picket lines (or, rather, the picnic afterwards) that Joss Whedon let out something of a “low quietly-distressed moan” at the mention of Goners, an embryonic discussion is underway to brainstorm some “meaningful way” to give the powers that be at Universal “a gentle nudge … to show them people want this to happen”.

‘Not Incredibly Well-Received’

On 31 October 2007 with No Comments

An article about Joss’ new television show, there’s some not particularly good news about the state of Goners.

The timing of this project is somewhat fortuitous for Whedon. (Except, of course, for that whole impending strike mess.) The latest rewrite of his supernatural triller Goners for Universal “was not incredibly well-received,” he says. “Nothing’s happening with it right now. It’s not good news, but one door closes, and then there’s a draft, and another one opens.”

The Nature Of The Beast

On 30 October 2007 with No Comments

Two new interviews with Joss have cropped up this week which contain at least passing reference to Goners.

First, a very brief reference in an interview with GreenCine:

I’m still trying to get Goners off the ground.

Second, a longer exchange with TV Guide:

Speaking of movies, how is Goners going?

Um, it’s going. It’s not going as quickly as I hoped, but then again, it’s movies and that’s part of how they’re different from TV. The script has been done. And I have rewritten it … and have rewritten it again. It’s the kind of the world we live in.

The nature of the beast.

Yes. And I think the operative word there is “beast”!

So there’s no casting in line yet?

Not really. I mean we’ve discussed it, but until the studio signs off on a script, that’s pretty much it.

Any chance there would be a role for Sarah Michelle Gellar in it?

Um [pause] I don’t know. Huh. I don’t think so. And that’s not exactly how it works. Obviously Sarah is a star… but I don’t know if it’s the sort of thing she would do or not — again, we haven’t gotten that far in the process. But you know, she sort of backed off from Buffy because she wanted to make her bones as other characters. Not that she wasn’t proud of what she’d done, and she should be, but you know, you want to sort of make your own way. So it would probably be the wrong idea. Although I love what Sarah can do. I think she has an amazing talent and we worked really well together for a lot of years, I have the same sort of thing: I want to prove that I can do this on my own and not make everything I do just a chance to have a reunion with my friends. That’s not to say I won’t have a reunion with my friends from time to time — I hope to. But the key is to keep an eye on the past, but at the same time, explore new territories.

Large

On 16 October 2007 with No Comments

Here is what someone has paraphrased from memory regarding what Joss had to say in SciFi Now: “I have a movie at Universal now, Goners, I’m doing rewrites. It’s large, large today means enormous, its not that, it is large for me.”

The Comic-Con Transcript

On 20 August 2007 with No Comments

Now that Joss’ panel at Comic-Con has been posted online, we can get the full and exact transcript of what he had to say about Goners, for the record.

A lot of people have asked me the status of Goners.

I would love to tell you that it’s an absolute go, but I am still rewriting it. It is however starting to look extremely good. And that is the thing I’m working on the hardest, and the biggest part of my life right now.

It’s tough. I had a little bit of a setback. I got some studio notes. You know how studios are. I had to sit through all these “notes” about how my script could be “better”.

And they were right.

So, still some work to be done, however I’m fairly confident and very hopeful that soon I will actually be able to announce that is happening.

Joss On Goners Via The A.V. Club

On 8 August 2007 with No Comments

The Onion’s A.V. Club has a long interview with Joss which covers a lot of ground about its status.

AVC: With that in mind, what can you say about Goners, the horror-fantasy film you’re developing?

JW: Well, there may be some female empowerment in it at some point. [Laughs.] I don’t know who put that there. It’s the same brew that I tend to brew, which is a combination of horror, and heroes, and people crying, and female empowerment. It’s been the thing that’s made my career, but it’s also the thing that’s come the closest to killing it: Whenever I write anything, I want to stuff every genre in that I possibly can. And then people are like, “Well, we don’t know how to market that, and if we don’t know how to market it…” [Whispers.] “We’re not going to make it.” [Laughs.] Although Universal’s been great, and they understand exactly what I want, what the movie’s about. In 18 months of working on Wonder Woman, nobody asked me what the movie was about, whereas at Universal, I’ve never had that problem. They really get it. Obviously, Goners is about human connection, and loneliness, and responsibility, and power, and the things that I inevitably end up writing about, because they’re the only things that interest me. Besides sex, and there’s not a lot of sex in it. I’ll probably have to change that in my next rewrite.

AVC: What’s its current status?

JW: I’m rewriting it. Rather more often than I’d hoped. [Laughs.] It’s pretty much where it was, which is bought by Universal, but not greenlit.

AVC: Do you intend it as a stand-alone project, or a new franchise?

JW: Yes. Yes, it has the potential to be the f-word, franchise. That can sometimes kill you, because when people start seeing that, sometimes they stop seeing the movie. It killed me with Serenity, because everybody was left with a bad taste in their mouth. We kind of failed. The movie did not make scads, at the box office, it barely broke even. But it made oodles of money on DVD, it’s doing just fine. But everyone was like, “Wow, we didn’t get to make the trilogy.” There was never a trilogy! In this sense, this movie is very much a journey. It’s not just a classic superhero movie—set up a premise, and here are some cool people, here are the rules, and let’s go. It’s very much this woman’s journey, and it’s a very painful, strange, hellish journey. I have to concentrate on that, not the fact that there may be dolls. But, unfortunately, once the word “franchise” comes up, people look at the structure of the script you’ve given them differently. That’s just going to happen. The word “franchise” has almost killed my career. If people don’t stop using it, I’m going to get very twitchy.

…

AVC: Getting back to Goners… You’ve been very secretive about the plot, just as you’ve always been close-mouthed about your projects in advance. Which makes a lot of sense when people are trying to get you to admit how you’re going to resolve some big cliffhanger on one of your shows, but it seems a little odder when you’re talking about an unknown project.

JW: The fact of the matter is, I’m not trying to sell it. In fact, I’m trying to keep it from being sold, because if everybody gets sold on it, and it doesn’t happen for two and a half years, they’ll feel like they already bought it. The people to whom I must sell it have bought it. [Laughs.] That’s good. They got to read the whole script. There’s no way everybody who wants to can find everything they want to know about the movie before it comes out. That is one of the worst things in our culture. I believe it’s destroying storytelling. Now, I can’t stop it, but I’m certainly not going to lay out the entire story when I haven’t even got a green light on production, because then, people already feel like they’ve lived with a character, and not in a good way. It’s not intelligent marketing, and it’s not intelligent storytelling. I understand there’s a limit. There’s a point at which you have to talk about it. I struggled with this while doing the promos for Buffy, when people were like, “This act-two twist is what makes people come see the show. You absolutely have to put it in the preview.” The entire world has turned into the opening credits from Battlestar Galactica and that just can’t be. My wife and I always shut our eyes during those.

…

AVC: You said in a very recent interview that you’re going to find out in the next few weeks whether you’re going to be able to do Goners this year. If that doesn’t work out, is it likely to be scheduled for next year?

JW: Well, if it doesn’t go through this year, a) that’ll suck. [Laughs.] And b) something else will. That’s part of the idea of putting together small projects. I gotta roll. I gotta roll. I gotta feed the beast, as they say. I love to shoot. And I love the comics, and I’m having the time of my life, and when this comes out, there will have been a new comic unveiled, and it’s great, but that’s not enough for me, and it’s not enough for the fans, either. I need to film some people. [Laughs.] So if it’s not Goners, it’ll be something.

Very Much Alive

On 3 August 2007 with No Comments

An update to the previously-linked interview, which reflects what Joss said at his Comic-Con panel: “One thing that didn’t make it into the interview because I wasn’t recording yet was that Joss is currently rewriting the Goners script and he feels like he’s getting great notes (as opposed to Wonder Woman) so the project is still very much alive.”

Random Bits

On 3 August 2007 with No Comments

A new Rope of Silicon interview with Joss includes a couple of references to Goners.

First, regarding the point during which the Wonder Woman gig was falling apart:

I deliberately scheduled a Goners meeting right before talking to them because I knew what was coming. I came out of that Goners meeting buzzed and it was then I realized that in a year and a half no one had ever asked me what Wonder Woman was about.

And then this, in a digression about Neil Gaiman:

I think he and I suffer from the same thing, we’re not locked into a formula genre, we like to do everything all at once. That’s what‘s fun. But it also makes me unsellable. I’m having the same issue with Goners, people asking “Well, what category does this fall into?”