It’s a Marvel news kind of day (it took a lot of willpower to avoid saying it was a Marvel-ous news day), with Whedon chatting about Avengers and now some updates on Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D.
The show is expected to begin filming next month, January of 2013, and the cast is almost all there. Jeph Loeb, Marvel TV’s head honcho, says that it could be happening as soon as next fall: “Well…we have a ‘little’ pilot for television that you might have heard about called Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D. co-written, directed, and Executive Produced by none other than Joss Whedon! Working with Joss, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jeffrey Bell on the show is a blast! And bringing in Clark Gregg to play Agent Phil Coulson — the best! Hopefully we will be on in the Fall of 2013 on ABC!“
Clark Gregg is the big draw, but he joins a cast that includes Iain De Caestecker (THE FADES) as Agent Leo Fitz, Elizabeth Henstridge (THE THOMPSONS) as Agent Gemma Simmons, and Ming-Na Wen (ER) as Agent Melinda May. But the question everyone is predictably asking is: Will Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., be making an appearance? Jackson seems down: “I don’t know. I keep hearing about it, and I haven’t talked to Joss about it…But in my mind, I would tend to think that he would, if nothing else, be like Charlie in ‘Charlie’s Angels.’ At least be the voice!“
The pilot will be directed by Joss Whedon, from a script he wrote with Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen.
