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The Next X-Men Films Part One: Wolverine 2, First Class

Rob Keyes — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:56:42 +0000

The folks at Empire had a chance to speak with Lauren Shuler Donner, producer of all films X-Men related, at the press junket for the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine on Blu-ray and they discussed the future of the franchise.

The feature that Empire put together on the interview was broken down into four sections for each of the movies: Wolverine 2, X-Men: First Class, Deadpool, and Magneto. We’ll go through and discuss each, passing to you the key things Donner says and giving our thoughts on it and how it relates to what we expected to see from these movies since their inception.

To start, here’s the latest on Wolverine 2 and X-Men: First Class…

Update: Click to see Part Two on Deadpool and Magneto.

To start, they touched on the most definite film we’ll see coming our way in the next fear year: Wolverine 2.

“It’s actually the story we wanted to use for the first Wolverine film, but [Fox head honcho] Tom Rothman preferred to set the character up with an origin story first. This movie will really focus on the relationship between Wolverine and Mariko, the daughter of a Japanese crime lord, and what happens to him in Japan.”

The Chris Claremont-Frank Miller run on Wolverine which saw him on his adventures to Japan is one of the most classic Wolverine tales there is and so it’s no wonder they want to turn that story into a feature film. That being said, I can’t say I disagree with Rothman’s reasoning to want to tell Wolverine’s origin first. We saw hints of his origin scattered throughout all of the X-trilogy so it was a story that had to be told. Although I’d argue that X-Men Origins: Wolverine didn’t do a great job of that, it made sense to do that before seeing Wolverine head to Japan, something not touched on at all in the X-Trilogy. The alternative would have been to do the Japan story first as a prequel to X-Men, followed by another prequel based before it? Nah, that doesn’t work as well.

I wasn’t impressed by either of the last two X-Men movies but I still hold hope that the franchise can turn it around and it looks like they’re going in the right direction with Wolverine’s next adventure. With the hiring of Oscar-winner Chris McQuarrie to write the script, with Donner’s and Jackman’s desire to have this film closely follow the source material, and with the studio seemingly holding back until (hopefully) selecting the right director, I can’t deny that I’m excited to see Wolverine in Japan, especially with what Donner says next:

“We want to make it authentic so I think it’s very likely we’ll be shooting in Japan. Also, by the way, we are looking to have the Japanese Fox executives involved in helping and counselling us, because it’s a different culture and we don’t want to portray the way they speak, dress and act in an inaccurate way. I think it’s likely the characters will speak English rather than Japanese with subtitles.”

Remember when this was a big issue for that other film McQuarrie wrote, Valkyrie? Once we all saw the movie and how they transitioned from Tom Cruise speaking German with subtitles into speaking English along with the rest of the cast, it didn’t really affect the film’s story or characters in the end. Although I admit it was weird hearing a group of German characters on screen with a half-dozen uniquely different non-German accents. I never expected to see the Wolverine sequel mostly spoken in Japanese with subtitles so this is of no surprise and shouldn’t alarm any fans.

Another thing we can expect from Wolverine 2 is Hugh Jackman fighting a lot less with his claws (after the horrible CGI of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this is a bonus):

“What’s cool about this part of the saga is that Wolverine will be fighting in a different style to what we’ve seen before… There’ll be samurai, ninja, katana blades, different forms of martial arts – mano-a-mano, extreme fighting. We’re going to come up with a new style of fighting. It’s going to be awesome.”

As you can tell, Donner is sure excited about the potential for Wolverine’s next story so let’s hope we get a high quality movie with Wolverine 2.

Click to continue reading about Wolverine 2 and X-Men: First Class…

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The Plan for X-Men: First Class [Updated]

Rob Keyes — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:07:59 +0000

The X-Men franchise has proven itself to be pretty much unstoppable so far with four financially successful films in a row, and talk of half a dozen more.

Even if they make a film with unfinished special effects, script issues, major leaks, bad critical response and a split fanbase, the movie will still bring in the crowds interested in seeing some of their favorite heroes on screen… even if they don’t match the characters they’re based on, who they came in to see.

With that in mind, there are many films Fox Studios has in development for the franchise but it’s been difficult deciphering which will come first… Could it be X-Men: First Class?

According to actor Tim Pocock who portrayed young Scott Summers in this year’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he’s currently working on an Austrialian TV show then he’s set to start shooting X-Men: First Class next year. He revealed the following in a recent tweet:

currently shooting Australian TV series till February 2010…then X-men first class

[UPDATE] Tim just posted the following on twitter a minute ago:

victim of cruel prank.last tweet=NOT me.AM filming Aussie show till2010.no official word on XM:FC but am interested.please post retraction.

Is this damage control from his agent or Fox because he spoke too soon? Weird prank that got left for a few days until news was made from it. I still think First Class could be happening relatively soon.

This isn’t too surprising since the film has been talked about for a long time and they’ve had Josh Schwartz on the task of penning the script since last November. But what does this mean for all of the other X-projects supposedly starting up in the next two years as well?

Wolverine 2 is in development with Oscar-winning writer Christopher McQuarrie penning the script that that could film in 2011 for a 2012 release date. We also heard a few weeks back from David Goyer that X-Men Origins: Magneto could start shooting as early as next year as well. And of course, we can’t forget about Green Lantern… I mean Deadpool’s solo flick with Ryan Reynolds.

Don’t stop there! Taylor Kitsch who played Gambit (the non Ragin’ Cajun version) has a three-picture deal and there’s been a tiny bit of talk he could get his own flick. I wrote a while back that Gambit’s solo feature would come a few years down the road, after the franchise establishes some other characters first and after Kitsch has his stardom built up (that’ll come with his lead role in John Carter of Mars which is planned to a massive-scale trilogy). Then, Kitsch could support his own big budget X-movie.

That being said, Gambit could pop up in one of the other movies, the most sensible being this one (X-Men: First Class). However, producer Lauren Shuler-Donner says otherwise since the movie is set to follow X-Men’s first class of mutants and Gambit wasn’t a part of it… I don’t know what that means since Angel and Iceman were part of that first class too but aren’t in the movies.

Click to continue reading about X-Men: First Class, its possible characters and more!

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Brett Ratner vs. Comic Book Fans (A Friendly Response)

Paul Young — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:57:34 +0000

Have you ever wanted to look deep into the dark recesses of a comic book movie director’s mind – nay – heart? You don’t have to look much further than the interview StarPulse.com recently held with director Brett Ratner. The Q&A session was mostly a junket to build hype for Ratner’s upcoming film The Shooter Series, but also touched on Beverly Hills Cop 4 and his thoughts on comic book fans, and it’s that last part I want to focus on.

There are sites out there (that we are most certainly friends with and fans of) that regularly rip Ratner and his films a new one. So I’m going to preface this article by saying that if you search Screen Rant you’ll find that while we may not be his biggest fans, we haven’t jumped on the “‘Brett Ratner sucks’ bandwagon” in our coverage of him or his films.

The interview is standard fare for the first part – with Ratner praising himself and all he has done. But soon enough the focus turns toward his work on X-Men 3: The Last Stand and all the flak he took from comic book fanboys for helming what many consider to be the worst installment of the trilogy. It is at this point Ratner’s true feelings towards his highly critical audience come out and the confession isn’t pretty. In fact, it should make every person that ever had a critical comment to make towards any of his movies stand up and thrust forth the proverbial finger and say “Spin on this Captain Franchise Killer!”

I’ll start with the question StarPulse.com asks Ratner, give a bit of his answer and then I’ll respond to his remarks. You can head over to StarPulse.com for the entire lengthy interview.

StarPulse.com : “You mentioned X-Men. Is the comic book fan the hardest demographic to please? If you look at the numbers: Bryan Singer’s X-Men made $157 Million, X-Men United made $214 million and your X-Men: The Last Stand made $234 million. Yet that group wasn’t particularly happy.”

Ratner: “Absolutely. Bryan Singer gave me the best advice when I was doing “X-Men 3,” Bryan is a really good friend of mine. Bryan said, “Whatever you do, do not read the Internet.” I’m like, “Why?” He’s like, “First of all, they hated on me the whole time I was making ‘X-Men’ and ‘X-Men 2.’ They said, ‘Gambit should have been the star of the movie’” They’re such rabid fans, they’re so passionate about their comic book characters that they think that their favorite character should be the star of the movie. Someone might be passionate about Iceman being the star. So, you can’t win. Everyone’s going to have their own so just stay away from their opinion and do what you feel’s best.”

Me: First off, I’m glad that Ratner clarifies that he and Bryan Singer are good friends, nothing like a good name drop and “nudge-wink-nudge” to validate the comments you are about to say. Yes we did “hate” on Singer the entire time he was making the first X-Men film but not so much with the second one. Singer needed to prove he could pull off a multiple character comic movie film that didn’t look and feel like Batman & Robin. If Singer had failed (which he didn’t), then all of the other comic book movies that came after might never would have materialized. Before X-Men, the only examples “rabid” fanboys had to look to in the comic book movie world were a handful of bad Batman movies (Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman excluded), a very bad Punisher movie and a made-for-TV Spider-Man flick – so excuse us for being overly concerned about X-Men’s transition from page to screen.

Ratner: I kind of made rules for myself. I said to the writers — Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg — I only want to put scenes in this movie that exist from actual comic books. That way I protect myself. Even though I protect myself they’re still saying, “Why the f*ck did [he] kill Professor X?” He died in five different comic books! People are crazy. “Brett Ratner killed Professor X! How dare he do that!” He died in five different comic books and came back!”

Me: First Ratner calls us rabid and passionate fans, implying that we know way more about the comic characters than he does, and then insults us for allegedly not knowing that Professor X has died on more than one occasion? Superman and Robin also died but I don’t see the other directors killing off their major characters. By the way, nice language to use during an interview.

Am I supposed to be impressed that Ratner made rules for himself and then chose to only follow the one where a character dies? He also killed off Cyclops in a manner that is not consistent with the comic stories. I don’t ever remember reading in the comics that Jean rises as the Phoenix, finds Scott by a lake and obliterates his molecules. One could argue that Cyclops did die in Uncanny X-Men #377 while sacrificing himself to save a friend from the villain Apocalypse (special thanks to Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw for pointing that out), and that Ratner simply took creative liberties with said death, but I don’t buy it. I think the “Great Sultan of the Lens” took the cheap way out by tossing Cyclops – a pivotal corner of the X-Universe – on the sideline.

I’m not done with his so called “rules”: Ratner says he we wanted to stay true to the source material from the comic, but then he throws in some throw-away characters and really messes up others. Fanboys gave him mad props for trying to include as many characters as he could – the inclusion of Angel, Beast and Colossus were among our favorites visually, but then he did nothing with them. They were just there to look at and chew up scenery. Some of the worst were Juggernaut, Leech, Siryn and Callisto; he put no thought into translating them from page to screen and for that I call “bull crap” on his “rules”.

(Continue to pg 2. for the “Waffle House” Effect)

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What Do X-Men Fans Want Most: Deadpool, Wolverine 2 or First Class?

Rob Keyes — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:30:03 +0000

In the wake of the financial success of the recent X-Men spinoff film featuring everyone’s favorite nice-guy Hugh Jackman as the overly nice Wolverine, there’s been plenty of talk, speculation and excitement over what the future holds for X-Men film franchise.

That being said, some don’t want that future at all. Not with Fox Studios anyways…

Shortly after the huge box office opening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine film, it was announced that Ryan Reynolds would be getting his own spinoff film for Deadpool – a character that wasn’t utilized right in the movie at all, to the point where they literally ruined him (the character and his life in the movie) to the dismay of many comics fans.

The bright side to that was the fact the Reynolds’ portrayal of Wade Wilson in his few scenes early in the film were spot on and in my mind, were the best part of the movie. Most agree that he was cast perfectly into the role before the movie even debuted and he sure proved them right. It’s unfortunate what they ended up doing with the character on screen out of his control.

What made the idea of Reynolds playing Deadpool even better was the fact that the Canadian actor loved the character and the books and he knew he (Wade Wilson/Deadpool) wasn’t being treated right in the movie. He said multiple times before the film came out that he’d love to make a proper Deadpool film based on the comics and he looked at the situation as an exciting opportunity to 1) play the ‘Merc with a Mouth’ and 2) to get the character introduced on screen in hopes of getting the chance to play him again under better circumstances.

Well, he was right and his movie was greenlit first out of the many X-projects in development over at Fox.

In addition to that, the folks over at MTV Splashpage held a little poll the other week to see what the fans wanted to see most of the potential sequel/spinoffs to X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The votes pushed Deadpool into the winning spot but only by a bit. It had 32% of the votes with a Wolverine sequel at a close second with 28%. Who knows how many voters there actually were but its interesting nevertheless and it matches my tastes too. The other options were X-Men Origins: Magneto and X-Men: First Class.

For the Marvel Studios-based movies, I’ve made it well known in my writing that I’m most excited for Kenneth Branagh’s Thor film and for Fox’s ill-treated X-franchise, I’m most excited for the Deadpool spinoff.

Continue Reading ‘What Do X-Men Fans Want Most: Deadpool, Wolverine 2 or First Class?’

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Gambit & Silver Fox Join ‘John Carter of Mars’

Rob Keyes — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:54:45 +0000

Two X-mutants are heading to Mars!

Taylor Kitsch who played Gambit along with Lynn Collins who played Silver Fox in last month’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine have both been added to the cast of the upcoming John Carter of Mars film adaptation based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ series of novels.

It looks like playing Gambit was the young Canadian actor’s breakthrough role as it helped land him the title role in this big budget film (and possible trilogy). Collins will be playing Dejah Thoris, the damsel in distress and heir to the throne of Mars’ Helium kingdom. She is of course the love interest of John Carter.

Directing the film is Andrew Stanton who will be making his debut into live-action with this project. The film will be absolutely littered with CGI effects to bring to life the various creatures depicted in the stories so he won’t be straying too far off the track he set with Wall-E and Finding Nemo.

The film will be rated PG-13 and is hoped to kick off a franchise of blockbusters similar to the size and scale of Pirates of the Caribbean. If this is a success (which I hope it is) Taylor will be hitting it big time and it will help build him a hefty profile which my lead to him getting that Gambit solo film that’s been widely speculated for some time. Up until this point, that film was the least likely of the potential spin-off films by Fox Studios because of Taylor not being very well-known or bankable as of yet. That looks to be changing with this news.

The last we heard on the John Carter of Mars film project prior to today was that screenwriter and novelist Michael Chabon had been hired to help do some revisions on the “already strong script.” With major casting announcements confirmed today, we can expect to see some more major movement on this project and maybe some updates at next month’s Comic-Con. For more information on the film and what the director had to say about it back in January, check out our article on Andrew Stanton discussing the project.

John Carter of Mars will likely open in 2012 and is set to start filming this November.

Source: THR

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Taylor Kitsch Excited To Give Us More Gambit

Rob Keyes — Sun, 17 May 2009 04:51:42 +0000

Taylor Kitch who played the Ragin’ Not-So-Cajun in X-Men Origins: Wolverine is stoked about the possibility of returning to his character in the Wolverine sequel.

Rotten Tomatoes caught up with the Canadian actor of Friday Night Lights fame at the Cannes Film Festival and discussed what’s next for the mutant character he portrays. RT asked him about the possibility of him returning in the Wolverine sequel which Taylor surprisingly heard nothing about. He laughingly responded:

“Man, good on Hugh for doing that to his body again… I hadn’t heard that was going to happen! You have my brain going now about what I’d love to do with Gambit!”

As for his character and what he’d like to do going forward:

“I’m just excited to go deeper into Gambit. It’s a flattering thing when people say that the only sh***y part about the character is we didn’t see enough of him. If that’s the case, bring it on. I want to go deep into Gambit.”

While Gambit certainly needed some more screen time in the movie, that’s not exactly the only [crappy] part of the character. If you’ve seen the movie, you probably noticed that Gambit’s trademark accent went from dark with a hint of Cajun, to just a southern teenager accent in the plane scene, to nearly no accent at all in his final scene in the movie.

“I have the tools now to do some larger fights and I’d be really excited to get a chance to do that, too. I have so many ideas in my mind right now!”

Taylor underwent plenty of physical training to use and fight with his staff, so he’s physically ready. If there’s to be more movies feature my favorite X-character, I want to see done with a little more attention to detail, especially the voice.

If Wolverine 2 is expected to follow Hugh Jackman’s character on his adventures in Japan, I don’t really see Gambit playing a part of that. Could he have a cameo in the confirmed Deadpool spinoff or X-Men: First Class? According to producer Lauren Shuler-Donner, Gambit won’t be one of the First Class roster members and her reasoning is that he wasn’t part of Xavier’s first class… but neither will half of the characters they choose so that’s weird.

The Deadpool spinoff was announced pretty quickly after Wolverine debuted to a strong opening weekend despite very poor reviews. That was expected and in an earlier post, I stated that Ryan Reynolds’ solo film would likely be the first to be confirmed as it is the most bankable. Taylor Kitsch doesn’t yet have the star power to lead his own big budget X-Film so we can expect to continue seeing him play smaller roles in other characters’ movies – Problem is, it doesn’t fit with them.

I love the Gambit character and I love Taylor’s passion about the character. If he dedicates himself to voice training like he does the physical stuff, we could be in for a treat.

Where do you think we’ll see Gambit next?

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

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X-Men Spinoffs: Deadpool, Storm & Gambit With Rogue?

Rob Keyes — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:40:42 +0000

As we enter the aftermath of the opening weekend of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the discussions of spinoffs and sequels hit full throttle.

We’ve heard for a while now about the internal discussions at Fox about the many possible films that can branch out from the series so far. These include X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2, Deadpool, X-Men: First Class, X-Men Origins: Magneto and a Gambit solo.

Well, what’s it going to be?

With Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine origins movie banking nearly $160 Million worldwide this weekend, we can expect to see some green lights on upcoming Fox productions in the X-Men franchise.

For now, let’s talk about what the actors want to see in the future. The other day, I wrote about Ryan Reynolds and his desire to not only have his own Deadpool solo movie, but to feature the character Cable as his opposite in the film. I’m all for that idea as I thought Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson in the Wolverine movie was one of the best parts (pre-Weapon XI that is).

For those who don’t know the character, Cable is the son of Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Madelyne Pryor (Jean Grey’s clone) who was taken to the future only to return as a much older and hardened mutant. This will certainly not be his origin if he is ever to appear in the movies. At least, not until the X-Men franchise is rebooted in the not-too-distant future.

I also thought that Cable would be a good character to introduce into the X-franchise and I proposed that a good place for his introduction would be in X-Men: First Class as it will bring back major characters Cyclops and Jean Grey back into the mix (and possibly Emma Frost). That way, Cable would known by audiences by the time Deadpool is made.

So, out of the solo possibilities, Deadpool seems a more likely choice than Gambit, if not for the fact Ryan Reynolds has significantly more star power than Taylor Kitsch.

As for Gambit, he is one of my favorite characters from the comics and of the classic nineties animated series. In the movie, he does not earn such praise from me.

While Gambit is a cool character and Taylor Kitsch a good actor, together they do not meet the basic needs of what many fans of the character want. Gambit needs his Cajun accent and his French catch-phrases – that is essential.

In the comments section of Screen Rant’s review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, you may have seen my review of the movie where I discuss a few of the characters. In it, I talk about how Gambit came off as some cocky southern kid and didn’t have the coolness or suave that the real Gambit puts forth. He wasn’t a bad character in the movie; he was just a weak character who could jump 50 feet high and nothing like the Marvel versions.

Regardless, Gambit is one of the spinoff possibilities. What does Taylor Kitsch, the actor who plays him want in a Gambit spinoff? In speaking to MTV before X-Men Origins: Wolverine hit theaters, the Canadian actor of Friday Night Lights fame said:

“I would love to go darker… [Gambit] in Vegas was fun, but I want to go into the Thieves Guild part of his story.”

“How cool would it be to see him stealing things to survive because the stakes are so high?… Of course, as an actor, I’m always going to the darker side, but for him that would just be way more intriguing.”

“Come on, Fox… Let’s do it.”

Click to continue “X-Men Spinoffs: Deadpool, Storm & Gambit With Rogue?”

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What Students Are In X-Men: First Class? (Not Gambit)

Rob Keyes — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:24:00 +0000

With X-Men Origins: Wolverine opening in a mere few days, there’s plenty of talk surrounding the X-Men franchise, sequels and spinoffs. Most of that talk centers around X-Men: First Class, the next X-project on the Fox’s development slate.

Two weeks ago, we found out some more details regarding X-Men: First Class where it was revealed that it would be another prequel tied into the X-Men movies that we’ve seen so far and not its own separate franchise that would hopefully follow a more accurate continuity from the comics.

Most blogs and movie news sites out there reported the news but none really explored the idea of who would actually be in the movie. In that report, producer Lauren Shuler-Donner discussed X-Men: First Class:

“It is the first class of Xavier’s school, way back when, so it’s young Scott, young Jean, young Beast and that’ll be really fun, I think (the plan) is to follow some of the characters into their own stories, and weave them back into the X-Men world.”

“And hopefully First Class will become its own franchise and we can follow them as they grow up.”

But Lauren, what about young Iceman and young Angel? Just kidding! I know you guys already messed that up.

I’ve said this before in other X-Men threads here on Screen Rant: the more changes and deviations from the source material that Fox makes with these movies, each successive movie becomes further and further distanced than the comics to the point where none of the characters and their histories resemble what they should.

We’re starting to see this really take effect now with characters showing up twenty years before they should in the Wolverine spinoff, and it’ll be at the forefront of X-Men: First Class with a roster that will be 40% different than that of the comic series it’s based on.

So, who is going to be on the First Class Roster?

In the comics, the X-Men: First Class series represents an early look at the original five X-Men characters: Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman and Jean Grey all under the teachings of Professor X.

In the X-Men movies however, Iceman is recruited into Xavier’s school for the gifted much later than the other core mutants and we don’t meet Angel until the third movie (he’s never actually a member of the X-Men) so we know they’re not involved.

As Donner says in her interview, we can expect to see the obvious characters of Cyclops, Jean and Beast. The other two (or more?) choices are up in the air but we can certainly piece together the possibilities from what we know about X-Men Origins: Wolverine. We can expect a lot of bridging between that movie and First Class since writer Josh Schwartz had to update his script with re-writes because of the additional footage shot later for X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Young Cyclops and Emma Frost from X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Fox’s take on the Wolverine origin story introduces us to a young Cyclops and a young Emma Frost, a prominent couple in modern X-Men comics. The movies are chronologically reversed from the comics in that aspect. In Marvel continuity, Cyclops is with Jean before meeting Emma and only hooks up with her years after Jean’s death.

It’s an easy assumption to make that we’ll therefore see Emma Frost as part of the original X-Men five which would make for an interesting love triangle (and a possible reason for Emma leaving the team and not being in the X-trilogy?). It’s also likely that Tim Pocock and Tahyna Tozzi who play Scott Summers and Emma Frost in X-Men Origins: Wolverine respectively would reprise their roles since First class takes place shortly after the events of that movie. They’ve already been cast as those characters once and are the right age, why else would they even be in the Wolverine film?

So, if Emma’s a part of the team, we still have one more spot. The obvious guess to fill the void would be Gambit – a fan favorite who finally makes his on-screen debut in the Wolverine origin movie and who’s played by young Taylor Kitsch (who also happens to have a three-picture contract), making him the right age to fit into X-Men: First Class. On top of that, with no Wolverine as part of the team, the Ragin’ Cajun can take the role of the independent keeps-to-himself bad-ass (that’s a reason Gambit was left out of X-Men 3). Unfortunately for us Gambit fans, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Click to continue reading about Gambit and the potential X-Men: First Class Roster…

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