Joss Whedon Quotes

It doesn't help anybody to put out a bad script.

I'm a reader. I found out that, whether you're a studio head or a director, you must read your own material. You can't rely on readers.

You read a million scripts during pilot season, and most of them are not very good, so the good ones really shine.

I find that with any good run on a show with good writers, they put something on paper, and you put something back on film, and that affects what they put on the paper the next time.

When you have a good script you're almost in more trouble than when you have a terrible script.

I can say yes to some directors without even reading a script. But the first-time directors I've worked with, the scripts have not been perfect, but they had something that I liked.

Good scripts have always been, I think, hard to find. Good storytelling, good writing - it's just not easy. I have made it a point that - if I'm going to put the energy into doing this work - I will wait until I find something I'm really happy with.

I started out working as a script editor and storyliner.

Finding a good script is really difficult and the scariest thing of all is when they say about a script that's not right, "we will fix it.." It's like before you get on the Titanic and you see a big hole. In process, it's too late.

I always get quite close to my script because I work quite hard on them.

I think of myself as a problem-solver. I want to go in and help the director and the writer to get the best they can out of the text they're working with.

Most scripts are bad. I read a lot of them.

Some of the material out there - I don't want to say that it's all bad - but there's a lot of bad stuff out there. You just continue reading scripts, and eventually you find something you connect with.

I think a good script is a rare thing, and I think no matter who you are you have to fight for the good ones.

When you first read a script is the purest moment. That's when you can understand how an audience will ultimately receive it. The first reading of the script is so important because you're experiencing it all for the first time, and it's then that you really know if it's going to work or not.

I have a tendency to say yes to a script or no to a script. Not yes based on a rewrite.

Lots of shows are written completely in the writer's room. And I wouldn't say 'The Walking Dead' is that way. There are three levels to it. There's us in the room. The writers going off by themselves. And me working with the writers on a finished script.

But the longer I'm in the business, you see a lot of times these screenplays have been rewritten 5 times and you're not really offending an author.

Writing, yeah. Me and my friend Scott Bloom just finished the first rough draft of a script. It's taken us three years to do, but we finally got a first draft. And we'll see whatever happens with that.

The problems I have with a flawed script are always revealed in the editing room.

I've rewritten a lot of the scripts I've done. 'Little Shop Of Horrors' was a complete rewrite, but I didn't touch the dialogue. Essentially, I'm a very good editor.

If there's something really, really bothering me about a script, then I'll say something, but otherwise I find my answers in the script.

My easiest judgment for a script is 'do I want to keep reading it?'

These things are hard to pin down. We work on a script a bit, then work on a different one.

It's not like I have boxes of scripts arriving at my door.