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Hollywood and the film industry at large are notoriously wary of spilling the beans about, well, anything. They'd rather not confirm anything. Teasing up until the very last minute is more their style, as everyone that follows entertainment news is well aware. The further away from release, the more likely this kind of winking is to happen. These guidelines apparently do not apply to Joss Whedon.

It's pretty uncommon that we get this excited about TV shows first thing in the morning, and we'll have some awesome stuff about robots and science for you to read in just a little while here, we promise, but man, this morning is a really good one for TV shows. First we had the new trailer for Arrested Development, now we've got a first look at Joss Whedon's superhero crime drama Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson became an audience favorite in The Avengers and the Marvel films leading up to it, and fans thought he was gone for good. There's been hope for a while now that Coulson would return in a S.H.I.E.L.D. television series, and that hope's paid off. ABC has officially picked up Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a series. Coulson lives!

Here I was thinking that red carpet Hollywood premieres and the like were boring affairs for those watching from home. The one for Iron Man 3, which was yesterday, has suddenly turned that all around for me. See, in an interview with Yahoo! Movies, Joss Whedon dropped a huge hint about the possible appearance of a certain brother and sister in Avengers 2. Yeah, he's pretty much definitely referring to Wanda and Pietro Maximoff -- Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

Veronica Mars fans weren't the only ones excited when creator Rob Thomas successfully raised over $2.5 million in one day on Kickstarter to make a Veronica Mars movie. It opened up a whole host of possibilities in the minds of fans of other shows. If Kickstarter can bring Veronica Mars back, then what's next? Firefly? Sorry, Browncoats, but no. Not Firefly, and that's from Joss Whedon himself.

Browncoated gamers from the core to the Rim have a new reason to get excited. Today, Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. has announced a partnership with Twentieth Century Fox to publish new tabletop RPG products based on the mind-blowingly-beloved Firefly television show.

Asteroids have been catching our attention a lot lately. Apophis was found to be larger and more dangerous than initially believed just in time for it to pass by Earth at 9.3 million miles. NASA has a potential plan to give the Moon its own moon by capturing an asteroid. The European Space Agency is sending up a pair of craft to test asteroid deflection methods. Now the startup Deep Space Industries plans to send "FireFly" spacecraft to explore near-earth asteroids to see if they can mine them for resources.

Joss Whedon finally looks to be getting his due. In an earnings call yesterday, Disney CEO Bob Iger dropped the bomb that not only had Whedon signed an exclusive deal to write and direct a second Avengers movie, but he will also help develop a new live-action Marvel television show for ABC. Given that The Avengers has grossed $1.46 billion for Marvel and parent company Disney since May, this seems like a pretty good idea.

There really are no words to accurately sum up what Firefly has meant and still means to many, many people. But it's been 10 years since the show first dawned and the expanded universe continues still through comic. Out at San Diego Comic-Con, a large group of the folks from the show, like Joss Whedon and Nathan Fillion, had an anniversary panel to celebrate the show and everything it encapsulates. Unfortunately, not everyone can go to conventions and even then not everyone can fit in the hall. But having someone record the entire length of it and then upload it is the next best thing.

And 'lo, Walt Disney Pictures has projected that Joss Whedon's take on The Avengers will utterly smash the previous opening weekend record set just last year by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The previous record was a measly $169.2 million, while The Avengers is slated to bring $200.3 million. Who says we'll never see a Firefly resurrection in our lifetime?

After much waiting, Joss Whedon's The Cabin in the Woods will be making its way to theatre's on April 13th. Quite frankly, I'm not a big Joss Whedon fan, nor had I ever heard of this movie prior to watching the above trailer, but I say this without a shred of compensation (hint hint) that it looks pretty great. What starts as a straight-forward slasher movie hook quickly changes into a bizarre barage of Sci-Fi and horror. Speaking optimistically, the movie looks to be a careful post-modern dissection of a slasher flick, complete with unseen powers stage-managing horror movie tropes from behind the scenes. Sort of like that dog from Silent Hill 2. You know the one.

Joss Whedon and I don’t necessarily mix well. That isn’t to say I dislike the man or the various creations he has been part of over the years. It’s merely an observation that while I overall enjoy his work, there have been times where, for me, he’s missed more than he’s hit. Like any other human being on this planet, he makes mistakes. Also like any other human being on this planet, everyone has their own opinion about art. That said, I’m a firm proponent of Firefly and all that the show entails. Nathan Fillion still has me watching Castle, though I generally loathe the way the show is paced. As someone who grew up with Toy Story, Whedon’s works have rarely been out of my life entirely, but I could never warm up to either Buffy or Angel. They never captured my rapt attention like they did for so many others, and there truly are so many others out there who loved it. There’s a certain section of people out there that praise everything Whedon and condemn all of those who dare question the simple fact that he is the best and has always been the best. To them, everything he touches is silver and gold. Maybe even platinum. There are also entire communities focused on following Whedon’s ripples in the world. For those of us who don’t connect our identity with Buffy or the like, however, there’s a much more even-keeled approach.

Firefly, as many Joss Whedon fans will tell you, was fantastic. Its quick cancellation after only eleven episodes wasn't due to the quality of the show, but more due to the way that Fox handled the show, showing episodes out of order, never having aired three of the series' fourteen episodes, and even going so far as to not air the first episode (which was double the length of a regular episode) of the show, which contained most of the characters' backstory and set up the show for the future. Firefly is missed to this day, and many of us (or at least one of us who may or may not be writing this) can't even get into other space dramas because they just make us miss Firefly.

While we don't have new episodes of the show to keep us satiated, the folks at CarSort put together this infographic filled with 18 neat facts about the show that we may not have know. Did you know that Neil Patrik Harris was turned down for the role of Simon? You should probably read on past the jump and learn some Firefly trivia.

Over at The Mary Sue, Natasha Simons does a bang-up job questioning the truism that cult hero writer and director Joss Whedon is a feminist because his work features strong women. "He’s praised for his interesting and multiform characters. Why, in these very pages, I’ve given him a share of credit myself. He’s earned the moniker of feminist seemingly through just the creation of strong female characters alone. But ... “Having a girl beat up guys is not equivalent to a strong female character when they ALWAYS, CONSTANTLY depend on men.” So true! Let’s consider some of his body of work as we undertake the Topic that Made the Fanboys Cry: Joss Whedon’s feminism." (The Mary Sue)

Firefly fan and Facebook user Kristoffer Gressli and his brother made a gingerbread version of everyone's favorite Firefly class starship, Serenity, which will undoubtedly be smuggling gingerbread cattle across the gingerbread 'Verse for the holidays. Check past the jump to see more pictures of the edible Serenity.