What’s all this I hear about Wil Wheaton directing the Avengers movie? I know the guy has a big following and everything, but come on! This is a huge franchise for Marvel and they can’t afford to muck it up! Picking your nose on the bridge of the Enterprise doesn’t exactly qualify you to… hmm? Ooooh. My bad. Well, that makes much more sense.

While as of this writing it is NOT official, Marvel does seem very close to signing geek demigod Joss Whedon to direct Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and maybe The Hulk when they all finally team up in The Avengers in the year 20-too-far-away-from-now. This is pretty good news, even though Whedon has only dabbled in feature directing once, when he adapted his own Firefly property into Serenity. What really gets me excited, though, is the rumor coupled with this that Whedon will also be tweaking the screenplay, originally written by Zak Penn.

He’ll be a fine director, I’m sure. But there’s just something about a Whedon script that crackles with vitality and invention. I think one of the problems with Dollhouse was that he didn’t bring enough of his own signature style to the thing that he created (that, and his “faith” in Eliza Dushku to carry a series. Pun intended). Can you imagine what it’ll be like having him write for Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark? The mind boggles at the thought of the inevitable banter between him and Captain America over differing leadership philosophies. We’re talking sass of biblical proportions.

Speaking of Tony Stark, the next entry in the Avengers film collective is just a few short weeks away, and I cannot wait. Jon Favreau gets it. Robert Downey Jr. also gets it. Even Gwyneth Paltrow had game in the first Iron Man. I have every confidence that part two is going to deliver. And who knows, maybe we’ll even have Scarlett Johansson still around as the Black Widow to join the team when all the chips fall.

So how are the other Avengers projects doing? Well, Thor has supposedly been shooting for a few months now. Save for a few wild rumors of friction between Anthony Hopkins and the production, it’s been going swimmingly. Maybe. The entire cast and crew could have sunk into the ocean for all we know, given the media vacuum surrounding the film. I still marvel (god damn, sometimes these puns are impossible to avoid) that we have such A-list names like Hopkins and Kenneth Branagh attached to these projects that less than 20 years ago would have probably seemed somewhat frivolous and childish. It’s still scheduled for a May, 2011 release at this point.

To recap (fuck!!) the Captain America news, Chris Evans is Cap, Sebastian Stan is Bucky, and it was just announced that Hayley Atwell will play the part of Steve Rogers’ World War II girlfriend Peggy Carter. Agent Smith himself, the joyfully sinister Hugo Weaving is still in negotiations to play the villainous Red Skull. So far, so awesome. At the moment, The First Avenger: Captain America is slated for a July 22, 2011 release.

But what about another Hulk movie? Both director Louis Leterrier and star Edward Norton are noncommittal about the prospect. Norton basically has said if the demand exists, then it’ll happen, and he’d be glad to do it. But Leterrier brought up an interesting point in an interview where he said a new, separate Hulk movie might be problematic, seeing as if the green goliath went on another rampage after it’s already been established that the Avengers are, you know, assembling, there would be little reason for them not to show up and hijack the story. But we are discussing the realm of comic book fantasy here, where anything is possible. Just don’t hold your breath for now.

So that covers the current roster that could make it to screens ahead of the first Joss-tastic Avengers movie, but there may be more slots to come later in the franchise. Marvel patriarch Stan Lee has convinced Scott Pilgrim writer/director Edgar Wright to get back to work on his Ant-Man script, so we could easily see Hank Pym surface between the first two Avengers films. And there have been other names floating around like Dr. Strange and Black Panther to potentially beef up the Marvel Studios bullpen, so there could be a lot to look forward to in the next few years.

So, until next week, ninjas, comment away, rock on, and don’t go mixing any Mentos with the Super Soldier formula.

Related posts on 30ninjas.com:

• Thor Spills the Beans on Avengers?
• The Avengers — The Third Bruce Banner of the Decade
• The Avengers Find Hawkeye in The Hurt Locker
• It’s All Geek To Me — Favreau’s No-Go Exposes Marvel Tableau
• Avengers Assemble Web Series
• Clark Gregg Joins Thor