Is Joss Whedon Done With The Marvel Cinematic Universe After AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON?

Eight years isn’t really a long time to be doing any one thing in Hollywood. Heck, successful TV series run for more years than that. But if you are a creative genius such as Joss Whedon, eight might just be enough.

Whedon talked with BuzzFeed News last week, and the writer/director hinted that his involvement with the Marvel Cinematic Universe might be coming to an end.

Whedon gave this response when asked if directing Captain Marvel might be in his post Avengers plans:

Um, I would never rule anything out, because I like working here. By the same token, the biggest thing for me is that I need to do something that I create myself. It’s been way too long since I created a universe. The last thing I did before The Avengers was [directing an episode of] Glee, and in between I did Much Ado About Nothing. So I haven’t created my own universe for over five years. That feels wrong. You know, my own universe might be a book of haiku. I’m not necessarily saying I’ve got a grand scheme.

I will say that when I was thinking about, Well, if I wasn’t going to do Avengers 2, what would I want to do? — of course the first thing I thought of was “turn-of-the-century female Batman.” Not Batman actually. But, you know, something cool. One person. Can’t stress that enough. Movie about one person — not a team, not 10, just one. But [I would] do a nice sort of hard action movie that combined all my favorite things. Something that would be the love child of Sam Fuller and Edward Gorey. You know, I’ve had many thoughts since then. Oh, I could do this! Oh, I could do that! But it is my instinct to want to tell those stories.

Captain Marvel I don’t know as well. There have been a few [versions] of her. I have the first issue of Ms. Marvel, back when she was that, and had the Farrah hair. My only issue with her is that she always felt sort of on top. She was very driven. A winner. I always like to dig into the soil of things to find my heroes, if I can.

Now, you can read Whedon’s comments a number of ways. But it seems that he is interested in at the very least taking a break from Marvel to work on original properties. Also, that Carol Danvers is too much of a winner for him to tackle.

While his guiding hand has made Marvel a cinematic juggernaut, anytime the creator of Buffy, Angel and Firefly wants to create something new and original, I say we let him.