http://www.beyondhollywood.com/hitman-director-xavier-gens-is-too-hardcore-for-fox/

have to admit, I don’t have very high hopes for the upcoming videogame to movie adaptation of “Hitman”. I don’t know, but the trailers just don’t do it for me. They look cool enough, in a sort of mindless, generic action movie sort of way, but I just don’t think it’s going to be anything special. Well, it looks like it’s just going to get less special, with rumors that the film’s original director, Frenchman Xavier Gens, has been pulled from the film after FOX got a look at his, apparently, very violent cut of the movie. In his place, FOX has placed Nicolas De Toth to re-cut the film and deliver a less gory/bloody edit. Toth is no stranger to trying to “cleaning up” movies — he was hired to do the same thing to the recent “Die Hard” sequel “Live Free or Die Hard”.

More:

“After being hired to shoot an adaptation of the ultra-violent video game Gens took Asian action films such as The Killer and A Bittersweet Life as his starting point and turned in an explicitly violent, very bloody cut of the film that apparently included a number of head shots and extreme gore moments that would have guaranteed the film a hard R rating. Which really shouldn’t have been any sort of surprise if the studio execs had been paying any attention at all – it’s not like they wouldn’t have seen the dailies or effects work ahead of time – but apparently after seeing Gens’ cut of the film the studio removed him from the project and placed Nicolas De Toth in control of a new edit of the film.”

For the Thomas Jane Punisher, it is really not a bad movie. I rewatched that film again recently and it hit me, it is basically a western. It is a modern-day-western with the Punisher character.

Gens, your heart is in the right place, but, sorry Monsieur. Also, going with your ‘realistic’ and ‘dark’ take on Daredevil now would be a bad idea considering everybody has put The Dark Knight as the benchmark (sighs). Anything closely resembling that would be panned immediately by the humanoids as copying that style.

One last thing, again to what Darren has said, there are Fox representatives who are administrators on this group. Lara Donner is an administrator and she mostly produces under the Fox banner, so bad-mouthing Fox is really not a good way in wanting to make a Fox-owned property. Hmm?

And dismayed…for a minute.

Having seen ‘Hitman’ and ‘Frontiers’ (the dullsville apocalyptic horror film that After Dark had to take off its Horrorfest “8 Films To Die For” lineup because it was given an NC-17) call me a bit skeptical. On the surface, his criticisms of FOX seem legit. The first Daredevil film even had early interference as in some shots DD costume is black and in later scenes red. (I didn’t have a problem with this, as DD had various “uniforms”, and, being blind not getting the right ‘color’ each time is understandable)

But even if Fox re-edited the ‘Hitman’ film and threw in another score…is Fox responsible for the slo-mo shots? No. Is Fox to blame for the wooden acting and lack of character development? No. Is Fox to blame for trying to save the movie? No.

After such harsh finger pointing, does anyone think FOX will let Gans direct Daredevil with such a lousy approach to the character? No.

The DD movie wasn’t horrible (although it took me a few viewings to like it more). I actually though the director’s cut* was good and in some areas was better than the theatrical, However, I also thought there was stuff in the theatrical that was better than the Director’s cut. But the “radar sense” and the origin story were two of the five undisputed best things about Daredevil (the other three being in the casting of Colin Farrell and Joe Pantoliano; the Kevin Smith cameo and/or references)

So I’m thinking he’s a bigger Punisher fan – and given his errors or “interference” on Hitman, shouldn’t he approach Lionsgate and make another action picture, Punisher with a ‘Hitman’ visual style (as much as I loathed Hitman, I did love that one action scene with the swords. You know the one)

But as far as Daredevil is concerned, he said he would cast another actor, so it’s more than likely he isn’t going the Miller/Statham route (although Statham would also make a good Bullseye) and given his friction with FOX over Hitman- be it his or their fault or both-I just see wishful hopes from a director. It won’t happen.

*Aside from Xavier Gens, the first film’s w/d, Mark Steven Johnson and producer Gary Foster are also “honorary” group administrators.

I’m just not interested in sitting through another origin story, even though I like the idea of Rourke as father Murdock (though I doubt he’d take such a small role).

Recast the major characters and just pick up the story with Murdock already in the hero business. Leaves more time for the action. Statham would rock the role.