Update: Well, Joss Whedon was in the running, as less than an hour after we posted our initial story, Deadline is reporting that Peter Sollet (“Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” “Raising Victor Vargas”) is in negotiations to direct Marvel’s “Runaways.”
Despite Sollet’s lack of experience handling CGI effects and action, it appears this choice seems to indicate that Disney is aiming for a potential franchise that has a firm handle on “The Breakfast Club”-esque vibe of this franchise that will have its sights aimed squarely on the “Twilight”-aged crowd.
With last week’s seemingly April Fools-worthy announcement that Joss Whedon, creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Dollhouse,” was in the running to direct Marvel’s big screen, big budget “Avengers” movie, confirmed by this LA Times piece, comes another interesting tidbit about Marvel and Whedon (though Whedon told InFocus in 2005 that the Avengers wasn’t a project he’d be interested in, but that was five years ago…).
A source tell us that Whedon is also in the running to direct the big screen version of Brian K. Vaughn and Adrian Alphona’s “Runaways,” a comic book series that Whedon did a brief run on after Vaughn left the series. The series is about a group of kids who discover that their parents are all part of a cadre of supervillians called The Pride. They decide to run away from their parents and expose them for the villains they are. It was a comic aimed at a younger audience that had unparalleled sophistication, benefiting greatly from Vaughn’s snappy writing style.
The “Runaways” rumor does hold some weight, as we’ve heard before that this is one of the first properties that Disney is really eager to develop and fully exploit, once all the ink is dry on the Disney/Marvel deal. With “Runaways” skewering towards younger age demographic (hello a “Twilight”-like audience) while still maintaining a heavy fan base in the teens-to-adults age range, “Runaways” could be one of those cross-platform hits that every company wants.
Also, we’d be remiss if we didn’t suggest that there’s no way in hell that Whedon is going to get the “The Avengers” job and that “Runaways” fits more squarely in his directorial wheelhouse (and therefor seems like a way more viable gig). The only other movie that Whedon has directed was the muddy, visually scatter-shot “Serenity,” a big-screen spin-off of his short-lived sci-fi western series “Firefly.” Even longtime Clint Eastwood cinematographer Jack Green couldn’t make “Serenity” any more watchable. “Avengers” is just too big and too complicated for Whedon to tackle (keep in mind he was, at one time, hired to write and direct a “Wonder Woman” movie for D.C. and Joel Silver but was fired from that).
“Runaways” could deliver some vintage Whedon. Those of us that watched “Buffy” know that he’s got an almost John Hughes-ian knack for understanding high school relationships and emotional states, which would be perfect for “Runaways.” And the scale wouldn’t be overwhelming, either. We just hope if Whedon does get the gig that he’s working from Brian K Vaughn’s original series and not his own disastrous run on the title (supposedly Vaughn has written a script for the “Runaways” movie too).
