While on some sort of bizarre world tour, Joss Whedon spoke to The Sydney Morning Herald, saying that his team is currently hard at work narrowing down The Avengers script. He notes, “Right now I’m working on a movie that’s got enormous stipulations and is going to be changing and fluid every second. I’ve come up with dozens of scenes and lines and exchanges and monologues that I adore that are not going to be in it. But while I’m writing them they feed me, excite me and they ultimately inform the character. It all goes in.”

 

Whedon seems excited that he’s able to work on a project that fuels so many ideas, even if a lot of them won’t make the cut (hey, that’s what sequels are for). Earlier in the week, Whedon also said that Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow will not be the only female character in the film, though she’ll be the only female Avenger. This, naturally, led to tons of speculation on the parts of fanboys everywhere. Is Gwyneth Paltrow returning? Will there be a female villain?

 

Care to speculate yourself?

 

 

Hey, if you were making a much-anticipated sequel, wouldn’t it be wise to compare it to The Dark Knight in some way since that turned out to be one of the most successful sequels of all time? Speaking to E! Online, Damon Lindelof (co-creator of Lost and producer on the upcoming Trek sequel) did exactly that when he said that they’re “looking at a movie like The Dark Knight, which went one step beyond Batman Begins. It was really about something, and at the same time it was a superhero movie. We don’t want to abandon all the things that made the first movie work and have it be fun and emotional, but we also really want the movie to thematically resonate.”

 

My sources tell me that the Star Trek 2 story is already done, and that work on the script is beginning real soon with an eye to begin filming in the late spring, early summer for their scheduled summer 2012 release date.

 

What would you like to see from the Star Trek sequel?

 

 

 

With folks growing increasingly more frustrated with the lack of announcements regarding The Hobbit – not to mention the fact that it’s practically impossible to cast without a production date set in stone – Peter Jackson has finally stepped up to give some sort of status update. He told The Dominion Post that both MGM and Warner Bros. are “making progress untangling the MGM situation”, and that they “should have certainty with The Hobbit sometime soon.” Certainty could go either way, though, right? Personally I don’t have such a good feeling – especially after seeing what happened to the next James Bond film (currently on a long hiatus) – but we should at least keep our fingers crossed for the time being.