Jean-Pierre Jeunet says Joss Whedon is ‘very good at making films for morons’

Jean-Pierre Jeunet has said that Joss Whedon “makes films for morons” in response to earlier criticism from the Avengers director.

French filmmaker Jeunet directed 1997 film Alien: Resurrection, which was written by Whedon just before he created the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Whedon has criticised the film several times in the past, stating: “They said the lines... mostly... but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do. It wasn’t so much that they’d changed the script – it’s that they just executed it in such a ghastly fashion as to render it almost unwatchable.”

In a new interview with The Independent, which will be published on Saturday (29 October), Jeunet told Tom Fordy: “I know Joss Whedon said some bad things about me. I don’t care. I know if Joss Whedon had made the film himself, it probably would have been a big success.”

Jeunet, who directed the 2001 film Amelie, continued: “He’s very good at making films for American geeks – something for morons. Because he’s very good at making Marvel films. I hate this kind of movie. It’s so silly, so stupid.”

Whedon directed the first two Avengers films, Avengers Assemble (2012) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). He infamously stepped in to complete DC’s Justice League (2017) when Zack Snyder was forced to step down.

Snyder released his full cut of the film in 2021 after heavy demand from fans, with the director revealing that he never watched Whedon’s version of the film at the advice of his wife, Deborah, and filmmaker Christopher Nolan, who was hired as an executive producer on the film when Snyder was in charge.

“They came and they just said, ‘You can never see that movie,” he revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair.

In recent years, Whedon has found himself at the centre of allegations of bullying and harassment.

The claims – made by Justice League actor Ray Fisher, Charisma Carpenter, who starred in Buffy and its spin-off Angel, and Wonder Woman’s Gal Gadot – repeat earlier allegations made by those who have worked with Whedon over the years.

Carpenter came forward with her own story of “disturbing incidents” in response to Fisher’s account, and detailed several alleged instances in which Whedon “abused his power” with her throughout her time on the show.

She also accused him of “creating hostile and toxic work environments since his early career”.

After Carpenter posted her account on social media, several of her co-stars, including Sarah Michelle Gellar, shared their support and denounced Whedon.

Whedon declined to comment on the allegations until January 2021, in which he said that Gadot’s allegations stemmed from a “misunderstanding” as “English is not her first language”.

The full interview with Jeunet is available to read here.