ABC Greenlights ‘S.H.I.E.L.D’ Marvel Pilot, Joss Whedon To Co-Write & Possibly Direct
EXCLUSIVE: ABC has ordered a pilot for S.H.I.E.L.D, a live-action series from The Avengers writer-director Joss Whedon, Marvel TV and ABC Studios. The project is based on Marvel’s peacekeeping organization S.H.I.E.L.D (which stands for Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate or Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division) found in both the Marvel comic book and feature film universes, including the blockbuster 2012 movie The Avengers, in which S.H.I.E.L.D director Nick Fury, recruits Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, and Thor to stop Thor’s adoptive brother Loki from subjugating Earth.
S.H.I.E.L.D. will be written by Whedon and frequent collaborators, his brother Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen. Joss Whedon also is set to direct the pilot, schedule permitting. Production on the pilot, which marks the first live-action Marvel TV project to get a green light, will start immediately. Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon and Tancharoen executive produce with Jeffrey Bell and Marvel TV’s Jeph Loeb.
Related: ABC And Marvel Eying ‘Avengers’-Themed TV Series
The project had been in the works at Marvel TV and ABC Studios for some time. Earlier this month, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that it had signed an exclusive film and TV deal with Joss Whedon, which included him writing and directing The Avengers sequel and develop a live-action series for Marvel TV and ABC, both owned by Disney.
This marks a return to series television for Joss Whedon, creator of cult favorites Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dollhouse. Husband and wife writing duo Jed Whedon and Tancharoen co-penned with Joss Whedon Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and also have worked on Dollhouse and Spartacus. In addition to S.H.I.E.L.D, Marvel TV has a couple of other projects in development at ABC Studios, including a Hulk series.
How is Whedon going to run this show and direct The Avengers? Or is he basically pulling a JJ Abrams in that he’ll direct and write the pilot and then hand it over to the other people.
More importantly, how can you have SHIELD without Nick Fury??!!!!
no no no no no no no. The most important question to ask is “what about Coulson”?
Marvel already told us that Coulson lived and he will be in the S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show.
they could have Hill run it
To be fair, he’s still got a little while to go before Avengers 2 really starts work. They have to get through Thor 2, Iron Man 3, and Captain America 2 first. I’m sure he’s doing some work on it, but not full-time. And he’ll direct ‘as his schedule permits’, so when he has some free time and the desire, he’ll pop in to do so. But I’m pretty sure he can keep the show running even while he’s doing films. He managed to keep several shows and a few comics running at the same time a few years back.
I’m pretty sure that will be Jeffery Bell’s role; to run the show day-to-day as he did for a while on Whedon’s ANGEL.
Easy, the next Avengers movie is at least 3 or 4 years out.
They’re already filming the next iron man and a new Thor is in the works. I don’t doubt we’re in for a cycle of solo movies than avengers.
Exciting news! So happy for Joss, he is such a classy genius.
Xander and Andrew are freaking out right now.
So much win for this comment!
Andrew is not a real nerd. He said he had seen all the episodes of Doctor Who. At the time of broadcast 109 were missing from the archives and had been since before Andrew was born.
Spike on the other hand probably has seen all the episodes of Doctor Who. Why else would he refer to himself as The Doctor?
seaucdfhsiofhjc YES
oh god, this is magical.
talk abut Marvel overload. they need to relax with all this Avengers crap
Not at all. It gonna be great to have a solid comic book based show on TV again, and Whedon is just the guy to pull it off.
MARIA HILL MARIA HILL MARIA HILL MARIA HILL MARIA HILL MARIA HILL MARIA HILLLLLLLLLLLLL
My nerd boner just went from 6 to Threat Level Midnight.
Kudos on getting the comics acronym right! However this show is going to be in the film continuity so it will be the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division instead.
Hollywood types…they got S.H.I.E.L.D. meaning wrong. In the Avengers cartoon and Marvel movies (which show is based on) it stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, not Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate
NERD, you’ve got to remember that the info given to press is from Marvel. SHIELD will have much more influence from the comic history that spans over 40 years than the MCU which spans, as far as SHIELD is concerned, what, 6 years? I believe they are also moving away from the “Homeland” designation as SHIELD is international in its’ scope.
Sam Jackson does Mace Windu’s voice on Clone Wars, I wonder if he’d agree to play Fury in at least a few eppys.
No he doesn’t.
(just in the “movie”, not the proper series)