Guided by Wonder to Uncover Wisdom & Inspiration

Joss Whedon was handed a basic three-act structure and the ending of The Avengers and was basically told: they’re a team by the end. Your task, should you accept, is the the minor detail of EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS BEFORE THAT. His solution involved two weeks of writing mostly useless nonsense, smashing random characters together to see what happened, working backward from scenes he already wanted, and eventually deleting material he genuinely loved. And somehow, out of that beautiful mess came one of the most tightly assembled ensemble movies around. So naturally, I went digging through his process to find out…