Was just reminded of another item that of course didn’t get linked here during this site’s absence. Back in January of this year, Blastr listed seven Joss Whedon projects they imagine will never be seen, including Goners on the list.

Goners, written after Serenity wrapped, sounds a bit like the way Buffy started, with a female character, Mia, who encounters horror in the real world but combats it with a strength she’s learning to use. Words Joss has used to describe Goners include “dark,” “darker” and “horrific.”

Joss has said he envisions Goners as the antidote for torture porn and called it “inspirational.” If anyone could merge heartfelt positive emotion with mutilation, it would be Joss.

Joss announced this “fantasy thriller” in September 2005. I’m writing this in January 2011.

What happened?

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what pushed Goners to the back burner, but other projects obviously got in the way. However, someone at Universal Studios had real intentions to make this movie: an official website, gonersmovie.com, was created but was later taken down without comment.

Goners’ IMDB page once stated that the movie would be released in 2010; currently, it says the movie will be released in 2011, which is unlikely, considering Joss’ current commitment to The Avengers.

However, Joss was quoted as saying that he wants to return to Goners after he’s finished with The Avengers. Whether it happens remains to be seen.

One thing in the above that’s decidedly wrong: the referenced website was a fan site, not an official one. Hopefully Blastr’s contention that Goners is a project that will never happen will prove to be just as wrong.

Since the last time this site was active — nearly three years ago now — Joss has said a couple of more things about Goners.

Most recently, he had some lengthy remarks about both the movie itself and its status at an appearance at the Sydney Opera House in August 2010.

Goners was typical of my career. I wrote it, was very excited by it, had a lot of heat, sold it… into the vault never to be seen. Yeah, I was talking about that when Serenity was going up because I was going to make it at Universal, but, err, that didn’t really happen did it?

Not really sure what to say about it. It’s about a young woman with “special powers” and she gathers a group of people with “special powers”, they conflict, in the end they work together. Wait a minute, I do suck. Wow, it’s weird to realise that in this room.

No, it probably was as close to myself, what I’ve been describing of myself today, as anything I’ve written, because the lead character Mia is painfully shy and very much alone and it’s a movie that is all about being alone, which is ultimately the thing which I’m writing about all the time. And it’s also a horror/action/super awesome thing.

It may not be dead, It may not be entirely dead. The producers that were attached to it still are attached to it emotionally, and the regime at Universal has changed, and I actually met with them recently and they were saying, “You know, you’ll be finished with the Avengers in ten or twelve years, so why don’t we revisit this.”

So, keep your fingers crossed.

Before that, back in a September 2009 interview with Blastr (still SCI FI Wire at the time), he made something of a plea to the studio.

What about Goners?

Whedon: I wish I could say something about Goners. Universal, release Goners into the wild so it can be free again.

I use these two updates as a way to re-launch What Is Mia Made Of, in the hopes that with the wide-ranging attention and mainstream appeal of the Avengers, the long and frustrating banishment of Goners into develoment hell might, at last, in the coming years, come to an end.

Over at the MTV Movies Blog they provide an update on various of Joss’ projects, including Goners. It’s short and bittersweet.

On the one hand, Joss says the project “has gotten backburnered”. However, despite that, and despite intimations in a number of statements that he perhaps has been less than pleased with the studio process on the script, he also is quoted as saying this: “I still have hope for it, though.”

Whedon once told us that he was writing a script for a movie, which he called a “very personal thing about human connection and questioning whether there is such a thing at all.” It was to be an original story, a horror fantasy, “a little darker than I’m used to,” about a young woman who gains some powers. “Not something I’ve written about before,” he joked, “but I’m excited to try some new territory.” Universal, however, has not been quite as excited just yet, as “Goners” “has gotten backburnered,” Whedon said, meaning it’s still in development. “I still have hope for it, though.”

First, the latest draft was not incredibly well-received. Then, there was the low quietly-distressed moan. And now?

Variety is reporting that Mary Parent, former vice chair of worldwide production at Universal Pictures (and then the Parent in Stuber/Parent) and the person interested in Goners, has taken a new position at MGM.

Of course, most of this is academic at this point, since Joss is focusing on getting Dollhouse up and running. Nonetheless, it seemed an item of note.

Addendum: There’s more at the Goners Blog and some discussion at WHEDONesque.