Just when things were looking a little brighter for the X-Men film franchise, somebody had to throw a wrench into the mix. After writing a two-part feature about the future of the X-Men based on a large LA Times interview with director Bryan Singer and producer Lauren Shuler Donner, it seems there’s a chance what was discussed about Singer’s involvement in X-Men: First Class may not come to fruition as planned.

In December, Bryan Singer and his own writer were confirmed to take on X-Men: First Class but according to a HitFix exclusive today, 20th Century Fox met with at least two directors last week for the First Class gig, a job that Singer was locked for. The article describes the two potential replacements as “good names, guys who either have real experience in the comic book movie medium or who have heavy credibility with fan audiences.”

While partly confusing, this isn’t shocking news since we knew of the potential hitch with Singer being under contract with Warner Bros. (owner of DC Entertainment) for Jack the Giant Killer which he is also set to direct. In addition to that, he’s got Excalibur and Battlestar Galactica to work on as well.

My question is this; if Fox and Singer worked out a deal for his return to direct X-Men: First Class, how could they not have worked out a time schedule accounting for the other projects he’s already signed for with other studios? If they’re in a hurry (which the are) and he’s not available till 2012 as HitFix suggests, something’s wrong here – especially with the timing of this big interview which comes out on the Sunday Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times tomorrow.

An official schedule or start date has not been set for the X-Men prequel about Professor Xavier’s first students but we know they want to start this year or early next year at the absolute latest. Waiting years in between franchise installments with so much potential is not something Fox is keen on, especially with their newly found spending money courtesy of James Cameron’s blue pet project, Avatar.

If I had to shoot some unsupported guesses out for fun as to who Fox could be looking at to replace Singer if he’s forced out of the job, names like Joss Whedon and Matthew Vaughn come to mind since both have appropriate and relevant experience in film-making and comics. They need some positive fan support and Vaughn has the highly anticipated Kick-Ass coming out soon which has been receiving nothing but praise from all accounts and he was previously attached to direct X-Men 3 before he made the smart decision to leave (he hates what came of X-Men 3 by the way). Joss Whedon on the other hand is loved amongst the geeks and wrote one of the best X-Men comic arcs in recent years with his 25 issue run on Astonishing X-Men (since he left, it’s been bad).

If for whatever strange reason it comes to be that Singer backs out of First Class due to scheduling conflicts, than I have a strong feeling that my initial theory on his return may instead provide the outlet for him to tell another X-Men story. Back in October, two months prior to his signing on for First Class, I predicted that Bryan Singer would come back to direct X-Men 4 due to his other movies in development and from what we’re hearing now, this may just be the case. He’s a busy man and this is something Singer brought up when talking about X-Men 4 and Wolverine 2 after a recent meeting with Hugh Jackman.

What directors would you like to see take on Wolverine 2, X-Men: First Class and X-Men 4?

If you’re a fan, check out our piece on What We Need From X-Men 4 and on What X-Men 3 Could Have Been.

Follow me on Twitter @rob_keyes

Source: HitFix, Cinema Blend

The LA Times Blog posted a slightly shortened version of their lengthy editorial on the X-Men, featuring an interview with Bryan Singer and X-Men franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner. The full version will appear in the Sunday Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times tomorrow.

There was a lot of info to soak in from this piece so on Thursday, we looked at it from the standpoint of the status and plan for X-Men: First Class and now we’ll look at the other X-Men projects that Bryan Singer may be involved with for Fox studios: X-Men 4 and Wolverine 2.

Before we get started, take a look at part one of our Bryan Singer/X-Men discussion where he and producer Lauren Shuler Donner talk about the franchise, its future and X-Men: First Class.

X-Men 4

The LA Times article references at least two points during the interview where they went off the record to discuss the future of the franchise and its this information I wish I was privy to most. But for the part where they talked X-Men 4, director Bryan Singer made no effort to hold back his desire to take on that project as well.

“Hold that one off for just a little, I’m fixated on the other one right now.”

To which X-Men franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner acknowledged and replied;

“I will, I will … I’m holding it open with high hopes. It’s totally different [from 'First Class'] and it will be so interesting for you.”

After he does First Class and once Hugh Jackman finishes shooting his solo sequel, wouldn’t be epic to see them working together again on X-Men 4? Singer would then be doing the ‘before’ and the ‘after’ of the main series of the franchise and could help introduce some very cool storylines into the franchise, notably the time-traveling character of Cable who I can personally confirm has been a frequent topic in the Fox meetings for the franchise.

Will Hugh Jackman and Bryan Singer work together again?

X-Crossovers

We all know that Marvel Studios is working to have all of their upcoming superhero flicks cross-over, leading to the epic team-up flick we know as The Avengers. And with Warner Bros. headmaster Alan Horn saying today at ShoWest that DC Comics movies will be the next major franchise to take the place of Harry Potter, combined with the news of Christopher Nolan working on not only Batman 3, but the Superman reboot as well, this essentially confirms they will cross-over leading to the Justice League. Needless to say, Fox will need to keep up with the major superhero franchise they own to play with the big boys.

The obvious difference is that the X-Men started as a team and is now going the other direction with prequels and solo character spin-offs. However, if those movies take advantage of some of X-Men’s most popular time-travel tales from the decades of comics, we can see them all work together and perhaps get to see more than expected in X-Men 4.

On the topic of Cable, we also know Donner has a New Mutants project in early development so fans of the character and the X-Men books will know how Cable can play a part in that, in the Deadpool movie as well as the X-Men prequel and sequel that Singer could find himself directing.

I have an idea. Since the end if the trilogy was titled X-Men: The Last Stand, let’s call the next installment X-Men 3 instead… for obvious reasons.

Excited about the future of the X-Men on screen? If you’re a fan, check out our piece on What We Need From X-Men 4 and on What X-Men 3 Could Have Been.

Follow me on Twitter @rob_keyes

Source: LA Times

[UPDATE: Check out Part Two of this feature where Bryan Singer talks possible Wolverine 2 involvement and directing X-Men 4!]

While the media world has been heating up along with the production of several films for both Disney’s Marvel Studios and Warner Bros.’ DC Entertainment, it’s been a little cold on the X-Men news front for Fox Studios. This changes today as the LA Times Blog posted a segment of their lengthy editorial on the X-Men, featuring an interview with Bryan Singer and X-Men franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner. The full version will appear in the Sunday Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times.

The article focuses on the history of the X-Men film franchise and how Bryan Singer’s risky (at the time) take on the superhero genre helped re-define what comic book movies could bring to moviegoers, setting the stage for the major franchises we see lighting up the box office today. It’s a definite must-read for any X-Men fan, but we’ll discuss the most interesting bits here – namely, the hints of what we may see from the future of the franchise and Bryan Singer’s possible involvement with X-Men 4 and Wolverine 2, in addition to his helming of the prequel X-Men: First Class.

It’s been no secret that Singer and Donner have a strong working relationship and for quite some time prior to Singer signing back up to direct the First Class prequel, there was no holding back from either side on their desires to work together again for another X-Men movie. Back in October, I said that he would likely be back and if he did, he may direct X-Men 4 which Donner hinted at as one of the projects she really wants to develop. The good news is that from this LA Times post, that may actually happen – more on that later.

For obvious reasons, Singer’s return is beneficial to all parties involved; Fox has a chance to bring back the quality expected from the franchise after the well-received first two installments and redeem themselves for the critical disappointments in X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine – in the interview, it’s made clear that Donner realizes this (as we’ve seen before) and on Singer’s side of things, he realizes that he’s better suited for the X-Men and their team dynamics as opposed to the solo hero we saw in Superman Returns – here’s his explanation:

“I genuinely like the people, and my personality meshes more with this universe than it does with other universes, I think; I see that now at this point… I feel a connection to the X-Men characters and also the ensemble nature of the films. If you look at ‘Usual Suspects” or my last film, ‘Valkyrie,’  I feel especially comfortable with ensemble juggling. In the space between all the characters you can disguise a central thought that’s hidden in all the discourse. I missed that with the singular relationship story of Superman. And, well, it always gives you something to cut to…”

Presently, we know Singer is signed to helm X-Men: First Class and that Josh Schwartz, who was picked up to do the script, finished a draft, but is no longer in the picture since Singer came on board with a new writer and his own story ideas. While it’s being kept secret as to what Schwartz was going for with his story, I am very confident with Singer having creative control to bring his own story for the project going forward.

Continue to Page 2: The Schedule and Story for X-Men: First Class…

In September of 2009, the four children of comic legend Jack Kirby sent out 45 “notices of termination” to the companies currently making money off of their father’s creations, including Marvel, Disney, Sony, Fox and Universal.  Now, The Hollywood Reporter tells us the suit has officially been filed, seeking declaratory relief (the simple declaration of the status of a matter in controversy) as well as copyright termination for certain properties and, of course, profits.  Marvel already filed their own suit back in January, citing the 1909 Copyright Act as the basis for Marvel being the “author” of any Kirby-created works, but with the Kirby estate shopping for a court date it will be interesting to see if Marvel responds with any further counter legal action. Certainly with the might of the House of Mouse behind them, it shouldn’t be difficult to do so.

The matter is a contentious one: On the one hand, you would be hard pressed to find a professional or fan who felt creators didn’t deserve payment, accolades and credit for their work. On the other hand, given that Mr. Kirby passed sixteen years ago, this comes across as a play for millions – if not tens of millions – of dollars that the plaintiffs feel entitled to. The complaint states:

With respect to Co-Owned Kirby Works, Plaintiffs are entitled to a pro rata percentage of any and all proceeds, compensation, monies, profits, gains and advantages from the exploitation of, or attributable to, in whole or in part, such Co-Owned Kirby Works

For clarity’s sake, the Co-Owned Kirby Works to which the documents refer include but are not limited to The Fantastic Four, Ant-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Nick Fury, Spider-Man, The Avengers and the X-Men, and just so we’re on the same page, pro rata means proportionate ratio, aka a whole lot of money.

Given that Kirby has never been an obscure figure, that his monumental contributions to the landscape of modern super-hero comic books have never been disputed, the suit clearly can’t be about regaining recognition or lost glory- right? Except a portion of the complaint states “Kirby was also not properly identified by Marvel as the author or co-author of the underlying works on which the Kirby Films and the Kirby Film Merchandise were based.”, referring to The Incredible Hulk and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The plaintiffs state that the false advertisements “were made by Marvel with a willful disregard for the public interest”, and that the company’s actions have caused indefinable injury to the Kirby estate both financially and in reputation.

I would be curious as to what Len Wein thinks of that.

Of course, there’s a bonus to the hubbub if you think Fox is mutilating the Marvel properties it holds the rights to since, as THR points out, if the Kirby estate wins copyright termination they can license competing versions of the franchises.

When it comes down to it, Jack Kirby should have made a lot more money than he did.  The characters he created with Stan Lee are not merely iconic, but altered the nature of the industry and remain some of the most beloved characters in the Marvel Universe – Lee, Ditko and Kirby made Marvel what it was and enabled it to become what it is now (I mean that in a good way).  His relationship with the publisher was a rocky one to be sure, and not without reason; the complaint cites the creator’s mid-80s dispute with Marvel over the possession of his original artwork, which the plaintiffs say was not all returned. I think, ultimately, it’s the scope of this lawsuit that risks smacking of opportunism, but with fifty years of history in the pages of the complaint and millions of dollars to be made or lost in the future depending on its outcome, who’s to say the family hasn’t the right to pursue battles their father thought were already lost? What do you guys think?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

In November 2008, Fox Studios hired, Josh Schwartz (The OC, Chuck) to pen the script for X-Men: First Class, a prequel to the existing set of X-Men films that have come out every 2-3 years since 2000 when Bryan Singer brought to life one of the most popular comic book franchises.

Schwartz’ gig came to end a few months ago however, when Bryan Singer – long-rumored to be returning to the X-Men franchise – signed to direct X-Men: First Class. With his recruitment also came the signing of another writer, Jamie Moss (Street Kings). While it was confirmed that the movie would still be an origins prequel to the existing set of films and not a reboot, they would be starting fresh again and Schwartz work would not be utilized.

MTV News caught up with Schwartz recently and discussed the situation how far he got with the script.

“I finished my draft… Bryan Singer came on board the movie, who’s the best possible guy to direct the ‘X-Men’ movies, and he wanted to make a very different kind of movie. He’s Bryan Singer. If he wants to make an X-Men movie, they make his X-Men movie… But it was a great experience and it was an honor to work on it.”

There’s no way Singer would come back if he didn’t get to create the movie and its story himself. So the question then becomes, what will Singer’s story do different and what was Schwartz’s all about?

“I cannot. It’s on lockdown… Sworn to secrecy. I swear to god, there’s a sniper with a gun pointed at me from that building.”

We won’t know for a long time what Schwartz’ story was going to be about so all we have to go on is what producer Lauren Shuler-Donner has revealed in the past. So, looking forward, what will Bryan Singer’s take on Xavier’s first group of mutant students be about?

We already know that it will involve Xavier’s creation of the School for the Gifted and his befriending of Magneto. I figure they’ll build Cerebro together and as the story unfolds, we’ll see their relationship start to drift apart through their different philosophies on the future of mutantkind and co-existence with humans. I think the dynamic of seeing these two leaders working together and teaching the first X-Men will make for an interesting backdrop to tell another X-Men story on screen.

We also know that new characters will be created for the movie, which is unnecessary in my mind. They can’t actually utilize the First Class roster of original mutants from the comic books but there are plenty of others in the X-Men universe to pick and choose from.

Continue to part 2 for our discussion of what we could see in X-Men: First Class!

]]> http://screenrant.com/josh-schwartz-x-men-first-class-characters-bryan-singer-rob-47108/feed/ 27 http://screenrant.com/kevin-feige-talks-10-years-of-marvel-movies-kofi-39828/ http://screenrant.com/kevin-feige-talks-10-years-of-marvel-movies-kofi-39828/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:27:24 +0000 Kofi Outlaw http://screenrant.com/?p=39828

As the first decade of the new millennium comes to an end, we look back at the era that saw our favorite comic book heroes from the house of Stan Lee making the leap from the page to the silver screen.

To bring us a first-hand perspective of the Marvel movie experience, President of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige recounted the hard work and big payoffs that catapulted Marvel (and comic book movies on the whole) to the cinematic power horse it is today.

I’ve taken the liberty of cutting down Feige’s quotes to Marvel News down into some smaller snippets that should help spark fond feelings of comic book movie nostalgia:

Trying to Break the “Marvel Curse”

I started at Marvel proper in August 2000; I had been working as an associate producer on “X-Men” in 1998. We worked on that for almost three years. Back in those days there was the “Marvel Curse.”…We just kind of kept of our head down and made the movie. We focused on the characters and kept it true to the comics.

Opening Night of X-Men

We didn’t know what to expect. The trailers were well received, but there were still a lot of doubters when the first photo of Wolverine was leaked onto the Internet. When the crowd started cheering, it just felt like the start of something big.

Spider-Man sets records

The movie brought Marvel and Spidey back into pop culture. Audiences around the country would cheer for the Marvel logo when it appeared on screen for that movie, and that was astounding.

Expanding the Brand

After the first Spider-Man, we had three movies in the works: “Daredevil,” Ang Lee’s “Hulk” and “X-Men 2″…All three of those movies did really well. That was the first year people started to ask me when I thought this fad was going to end, and my answer to that question even to this day is that as long as we keep making these films in fresh and unique ways it’s never going to run out.

Critical Acclaim

In 2004 came “Spider-Man 2.” I think that was one of the best films we’ve ever done…There was even talk of Alfred Molina being up for an Oscar [for his performance as Doctor Octopus].

Too Much of a good thing

This got studios wanting to move forward with a lot of the characters faster. Things got a little out of our hands then. That’s when we started thinking above making the movies internally…”Spider-Man 3″ got to be too much of a good thing…we learned that bigger is not always better.

Keeping Everything In House

“Iron Man” and “The Incredible Hulk” wound up being the first films we produced at Marvel Studios by ourselves. It was great to get those titles back in our own hands. When you know the characters as well as we do, it’s great to look at their cinematic potential.

Building a Marvel Movie Universe

We had a lot of names on the list when it came to casting Tony Stark, but Robert Downey Jr.’s quickly rose to the top. Then, getting Samuel L. Jackson to make a cameo as Nick Fury was also huge. After that, Robert was nice enough to stop by the “Incredible Hulk” set. This set up that Marvel Studio films are really going to bring the Marvel Universe to the big screen-the films are no longer their own separate island, and you never know what to expect.

A Bright Future

To be honest the thing that I’m most excited about right now though, is the screen test we just finished for “Thor.” We’ve done some costume tests and watching the Asgardians walk onto the sound stage takes me back to that first time I saw the X-Men on the set all together in Toronto. Only it was unlike anything we’ve ever put on film before! It’s great to be starting the next decade in such an exciting way just as we did last decade. We’re really redefining the comic book genre and what a Marvel movie can be. It’s going to be great.

There is so much more to this interview with Feige – if you want to read it all, go HERE.

As you head into the year 2010 (pronounced “twenty-ten,” BTW) be sure to stop and take a look back at the decade that made your fondest fanboy wishes into realities and consider what to look forward to from Marvel Studios and all comic book movies in the next decade.

Got to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going. Happy New Years, all.

Source: Marvel News

We’ve come to the end of 2009, so we thought we’d weigh in with a look back at the first 10 years of the 21st century in the movie world and discuss the various different “events” which shaped the decade. Obviously we can’t cover absolutely everything, but sticking true to our core movie genres on the site, we’re just going to concentrate on the comic-book, sci-fi, action (and so forth) types of movies and take a look at what films had the maximum impact over this decade.

It’s amazing to think that it’s been 10 years since movies like The Matrix, American Beauty and Fight Club (to name but a few) came out in 1999 (check out our 1999 decade highlight, if you haven’t already). A LOT of movies – somewhere in the vicinity of 5,000-6,000 – have been released since then. We’ve had the good, the bad and ugly in that time (much like every other decade, to be fair) – some we’ll look back on as classics in decades to come, and others we’ll probably look back on and wish we could forget about them (most video game adaptations, I’m looking at you).

Behind the scenes we fervently debated which areas we should discuss in this article, and eventually we came up with 10 big ones that will hopefully bring out strong thoughts and opinions from you, our loyal readers.

So without any further ado, here are the 10 events (trends, franchises – call it what you will) that we believe have shaped the decade for the types of movies we all like to revel in around here:

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10. The Rise of “The Apatow Comedy”

Judd Apatow is a producer who’s actually been working since the 90s (did you know he produced the Jim Carrey dark comedy, The Cable Guy, for instance?) but it was in 2005 that we started to see the emergence of “the Apatow comedy,” thanks in large part to The 40 Year Old Virgin. It was a truly hilarious film (I can’t remember ever laughing that much in a theater) but also one with a lot of heart and relatability. Sure, you had your crude sex jokes, but you also had a sweet story at the center, brought to life particularly well by stars Steve Carell and Catherine Keener.

The 40 Year Old Virgin was a smash hit, and it led to a slew of comedies from the Apatow camp, even if (as some people often forget) Apatow himself didn’t direct most of them. Superbad, Knocked Up, Funny People, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Pineapple Express, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story – all big hits with audiences. I don’t personally find all of his movies as hilarious as most people do, but there’s no denying the impact his style has had on the comedy genre. For instance, you’ll often hear people say, “It wasn’t as funny as [insert Apatow comedy here].” And I don’t see any sign of the Apatow comedy train slowing down anytime soon.

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9. “Torture-Porn” Horror Takes Over

In 2004 a fresh horror movie appeared on the scene called: Saw. It was a small, very low budget film that would shape the horror genre from thereafter. It effectively started a genre that we now know as “Torture-Porn.” That is horror films that consist of people being tortured, and we, the audience, get to see it in all its bloody, gory, detail. It’s just ironic that the original Saw has very little actual on-screen gore in it, and is actually a very smart, well-made film for what it is (it’s one I still revisit from time to time).

Unfortunately, it was the torture element that was latched onto by other filmmakers, and all of a sudden we were plagued with torture films; from Eli Roth’s Hostel and Hostel: Part II to the Elisha Cuthbert film Captivity (which was changed half-way through, with entirely new scenes shot in order to heighten the gore factor, out of fear it wouldn’t sell well to audiences otherwise – a weak box office of under $2 million opening weekend showed how bad that idea was). Saw has spawned a franchise consisting of 5 sequels already (with more coming – in 3D no less!) and is really the only torture property (with a heart of gold?) that still makes decent money. How much longer can this trend that we’ve seen grow wildly go on? Will it still be as prolific – if around at all - in a decade’s time?

Continue Reading “10 Movie Events That Shaped the Decade”

As many of you no doubt already know, Bryan Singer revealed a major update about his future with the X-Men franchise last night while on the blue carpet for the Avatar premiere.

That revelation of course was that he will be directing X-Men: First Class. As of now, Fox has confirmed the deal for Singer’s return to the director’s chair and develop the film about Professor Xavier’s first group of young mutant recruits.

As we knew from before, Josh Schwartz (The OC, Chuck) was working on the script for First Class since last November but the studio has signed Jamie Moss (Street Kings) to pen the screenplay for the project.

The Hollywood Reporter points out that they’re “going back to the drawing board” for the movie, explaining the signing of a new writer to work with Bryan Singer.

When Singer revealed that he’s working on this project yesterday, he again confirmed that the film will in fact be an origins prequel to the existing set of films and not a reboot. As I said in some of our previous discussions on the X-Men films, Fox put forth a lot of effort in selecting, including, marketing and signing multi-picture deals with Tim Pocock and Tahyna Tozzi who played Cyclops and Emma Frost respectively in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, let alone the [Spoiler] scene where the mutant escapees are rescued by Professor X towards the end of that movie.

That scene and the inclusion of these characters occurred for the sole reason of branching off into X-Men: First Class and linking all of the films together.

The timing of this is not unexpected as that’s the same Tim Pocock who may have spilled the beans a few months back about the movie shooting next year sometime after he’d be done shooting his TV series in Australia in February. He had retracted this after tweeting it, indicating it was a prank.

THR’s update continues on to report new characters will be created for the movie, which is unnecessary in my mind, but I can see why they may do this since they can’t actually utilize the First Class roster of original mutants from the comic books. Of the original five members of X-Men: First Class, two of them, Angel and Iceman, are introduced later on in the franchise timeline, so this movie will not follow the comics in that sense.

Interestingly, a theory I shared about Magneto being a part of the film may turn out to be true as well as it’s being reported that the film will deal with the first meeting of Xavier and Magneto as well as the creation of school.

I had previously said that we could see Magneto working alongside Xavier for the same cause, starting the school, and constructing the Cerebro device we see in Bryan Singer’s first X-Men. The story could therefore follow their perspectives starting to differ and them eventually taking their separate paths.

Lauren Shuler Donner, producer of all X-movies, had said they want to start a new franchise with this, so it makes sense to have Singer come back to bring everything full circle. With the mention of new characters being created for the project, perhaps they could be introducing some candidates for the proposed New Mutants movie as well?

More on X-Men: First Class soon from Screen Rant so stick around!

Source: THR

Mike Dougherty, director of the long-delayed and mistreated Trick ‘r Treat and co-writer of X-Men 2 joined the /Filmcast over the weekend and in their special “After Dark” segment, where they talk about whatever’s on their mind, their conversation hit on the interesting subject of X-Men 3, for which Dougherty and Singer were not a part of, but would have been had Singer not swung over to DC to make Superman Returns (for which Dougherty helped write).

In the audio clip, Dave Chen, Adam Quigley and Devindra Hardawar bring up the subject the X3 and quiz Dougherty on his thoughts of the movie, for which he answered reservedly and professionally. The interesting parts however, came afterward, when Dougherty moved on to explain some of the ideas he pitched to Bryan Singer for what of been their version of the third installment of the X-Men film franchise.

To start, we’ll go through some parts of the conversation, transcribed by Alex Billington of First Showing.

When questioned about what his and Singer’s ideas were for X-Men 3, Dougherty revealed some parts (that he was allowed to – he doesn’t want any angry calls from Bryan and these ideas could still be used down the road…) that he could remember from what he pitched as story elements.

“The idea – you open up with Alkali Lake but it’s completely barren and dried up and there are these odd reports of strange phenomena going on around the world accompanied by bright lights in the sky.”

“The idea would be that both the X-Men and the Brotherhood realize that essentially a very god-like force had entered their reality and that it was causing disruptions around the world – mutant prisons being decimated. I had pitched an idea about a fleet of cargo ships getting torn apart in the Atlantic and you found out that they were shuttling mutants as slave labor.”

“So basically you found out was that Phoenix was going round the world taking things into her own hands and that she had basically returned as a god, which they did touch upon in X3. She had viewed herself as above the conflict, that she was here to end things on her terms, she was basically sick of the fighting and she was going to take things into her own hands and she didn’t give a shit what the X-Men or the Brotherhood had to say about it.”

These few simple sentences are already a step up from how the ever-important Phoenix Saga was treated on screen in Brett Ratner’s adaptation. In X3: The Last Stand, The Phoenix character was resigned to standing and staring blankly in a red dress… that’s it. Every scene, she stands, stares and sometimes destruction surrounds her when she’s angry (and staring). There was no character, no purpose, just the under-utilized idea that she was all-powerful which never showed through and really didn’t have a plot.

Was X3 about Phoenix or about a cure to the mutation? It didn’t do either well, and neither storyline served its purpose fully.

In Dougherty’s version, he goes on to explain that in the end of his version Phoneix/Jean doesn’t get stabbed and die again but instead, chooses to leave. It gets better though as he continues to share his idea of the Cyclops we all know and love, the leader that should have been.

Click to continue reading ‘What X-Men 3 Could Have Been’

This is one of those ideas I’d say is very bad but at the same time, it’s pretty damn cool.

Everett Bradford put up a YouTube video to demonstrate what he calls “The Prometheus Device” and since then, it’s been popping up on geek and tech sites all over the web.

The device emulates what we see from the character of Pyro in X-Men 3: The Last Stand, sans his power to manipulate the fire once launching it out of his palm. Check out the demo video for the neat-but-incredibly-dangerous device below.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2oEP3RWppA

I’m impressed by both the device, its functionality and the bravery of its user, Mr. Bradford. I expect this dude will easily get a job with this spreading all over the net like wild fire. Get it?

This video went up on Monday and he promises a follow-up to go through the components and its construction so if you’re interested in how it was made, check his YouTube channel in the coming days.

Screen Rant does not endorse the use of technological devices to emulate super human powers.

What do you think of the flame thrower? Maybe he’s gunning for a role in X-Men 4?

A few days back, we put up part one of “The Next X-Men Films” series, our look into the future of Fox Studio’s growing and financially successful movie series based on Marvel’s mighty mutants. This was based on quotes from Empire’s recent feature on Lauren Shuler Donner, producer of all films X-Men related, and today we’ll look at the other two anticipated films she spoke about.

In Part One we discussed Wolverine 2, the most-likely-to-happen solo flick out of Fox’s development slate as well as X-Men: First Class, the prequel to Bryan Singer’s first X-Men which is currently in its writing stages with Josh Schwartz penning the script.

Now, it’s time to look at two other popular character solo movies that are in early stages of development: Deadpool and X-Men Origins: Magneto. One of these is likely to happen, one may not.

After the financial success of Wolverine’s solo prequel, we saw a quick greenlight for the Deadpool film and knew there’d be a Wolverine 2 down the road. Prior to this, X-Men: First Class, a team prequel to Bryan Singer’s first X-Men was already in the works. So, we all knew those were the three go-to projects for Fox Studios to come the soonest. What I never felt sure about was X-Men Origins: Magneto, since it would involve a recast of title character and wouldn’t tie-in too much with the franchise. That and the fact it would be based heavily during the holocaust made it less bankable as a superhero flick and more limited in playing with other popular mutants of the X-Men universe, especially compared to the other potential films they could create with those resources.

Deadpool

The first thing Donner said about the hopeful Ryan Reynolds starrer, Deadpool, is that it won’t be based on the messed up version of what we saw in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. By that, she means Fox and/or the folks responsible for Hugh Jackman’s solo title admittedly did a poor job of bring Deadpool to live-action.

“I want to ignore the version of Deadpool that we saw in Wolverine and just start over again. Reboot it. Because this guy talks, obviously, and to muzzle him would be insane.”

Yeap. Almost as insane as giving the character lasers that shoot from his eyes or swords longer than his forearm that come out of his arm…

Not the Deadpool we like

The one big issue that came not long after hype for the Deadpool project started to build was the unexpected announcement that Ryan Reynolds would be starring as Hal Jordan in the DC Comics movie, Green Lantern. Why would Warner Brothers choose the lead of an upcoming Marvel-based movie as the lead in their upcoming DC-based movie? More importantly for fans, does this mean he can only do one or the other?

“I don’t see it as a problem that Ryan [Reynolds] is also playing Green Lantern. I mean, look at Harrison Ford – he was in Stars Wars and Indiana Jones at the same time and everyone was fine with that. Green Lantern could not be more different to Wade Wilson. Green Lantern is a guy who finds a ring and is thrust into this world, much like Spider-Man. Wade Wilson is a guy who unfortunately gets cancer, and volunteers for a test that will give him healing powers. He is a bad ass, a wise-cracking mercenary, who will go out and kill anyone for money. But the thing about him is that, underneath it all, and he wouldn’t want you to know this, sometimes he’s not such a bad ass after all. Sometimes he does the right thing.”

As a fan of Reynolds and of his portrayal of Wade Wilson (pre-surgery) from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I want to see them make a Deadpool flick, especially with Donner, Reynolds and Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld making statements that the project will stay true to the comics, bring his red & black costume, break the fourth wall and bring a ton of attention to why he’s called the “Merc with the mouth.”

With that said, what kind of style and story can we expect from a Deadpool film?

“It’s going to be a dark, snarky, very funny movie. It’s the hardest story to tell, I think. There’s no clear cut villain – though you do have great baddies from the comic-books like Black Tom, Slayback, Blind Al and the Weasel. Blind Al is this blind woman in his house, who he abuses and mocks… it’s terrible. But you find out that she was a convict who did something terrible and he saved her from execution. So he lets her live in his house and she looks after him, but they both torture each other. Anyway, there are good stories and we’re figuring out which ones to incorporate.”

Lastly, Donner touched on where they are in pre-production for the flick and re-iterates that they’re really trying to push new boundaries in the comic book movie genre with this project.

“We’re right in the thick of talking to writers right now, and hopefully by November we’ll have decided who’s going to do it. We need someone really imaginative because we want to do some really innovative, ambitious stuff. Ryan’s mentioned this in an interview already but there are parts where he’s going to break the fourth wall and talk directly to the audience in the cinema. We have to work out how to do that. I don’t know that Fox will agree with all our decisions, but we’ll see!”

Unfortunately, she ended with the statement about Fox’s approval. Uh oh. Maybe we won’t see any fourth wall breakage and maybe they won’t have Deadpool wearing his mask after all. For once, I think fans need to see the folks responsible for production of the film to have more creative control. I’d love to see what the Donner, Reynolds and the writing team come up with if given complete creative freedom.

We’ll have to wait and see.

Click to continue reading about X-Men Origins: Magneto and more!

There’s been plenty of talk about the future of the X-Men franchise in recent times leading up to and after the financial success of X-Men Origins: Wolverine to kick off the summer of 2009. That hefty $85 million opening weekend helped push a Deadpool spin-off for Ryan Reynolds into motion as well as the early development of other spin-offs, prequels and even a sequel to the X-Men trilogy. That’s right, an X-Men 4 is in the early stages of planning.

In addition to the speculation of future installments to the franchise, there’s been buzz about the return of one of the folks responsible for helping kickstart the live-action series of X-Men films, Bryan Singer. We know that he’s interested and that X-producer Lauren Shuler Donner is too. But just how realistic is it?

As of this morning, it seems much more likely that this will come to fruition…

At the South Korea’s Pusan International Film Festival this morning, Bryan Singer revealed that he is in fact in talks with Fox Studios about a possible return to the X-Franchise, something that was hinted at back in June when he talked about his love of the franchise and the possibility of doing another.

This is what he said back then:

“I’m eternally intertwined with X-Men now… What takes an audience four hours to watch – the first two movies – took six years of my life. So, to not be part of it….It’s a shame.”

“It’s weird for me to watch it [the third movie], because I’m so close to the universe. And also Brett [Ratner] is a good friend of mine. But, of course, I would love to return to that universe.”

This morning, Singer’s latest words on the subject seemed very promising.

“I’m still looking to possibly returning to the ‘X-Men’ franchise. I’ve been talking to Fox about it,”

“I love Hugh Jackman. I love the cast.”

The director also touched on something that I think is very important about what made the first two X-Men movies stand far above X3. Singer said that with these movies he love to “trick audiences into thinking they’re seeing fireworks, but they’re learning about themselves and listening to what I have to say.”

“The excitement about working in science fiction and fantasy is — the stories, if they are good, are about the human condition.”

Let’s think about which movie Singer could direct if he were to helm another X-Men movie for Fox Studios. We know there’s a Magneto film in development but that will likely be helmed by David Goyer. Singer did a fantastic job of introducing Magneto’s origins as a child whose family was torn apart by the Nazi regime in that powerful opening sequence of the first X-Men.

Click to continue reading about Bryan Singer’s future with the X-Men…

In a move the reeks of opportunism and greed, Jack Kirby’s Estate (a.k.a. his family) have hired Intellectual Property Lawyer Marc Toberoff to sue Disney/Marvel, Sony, Universal, 20^th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures in an attempt to reclaim copyright ownership of the characters their late father Jacob Kurtzberg created. You may know his name better as Jack Kirby and you are most familiar with his iconic and highly popular comic book creations, The Fantastic Four, Captain America, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk and The Silver Surfer.

Thanks to the guys over /Film for sharing this with us and to Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool and Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywod who seem to have gotten the drop on this breaking news. This is not the first lawsuit we’ve seen involving a comic book creator’s estate vs. the current owner and publisher; Just recently we reported and discussed WB/DC’s fight with the heirs of Jerry Siegel and Jerry Schuster over the rights to Superman.

The Siegel/Shuster heirs have been successful in their legal pursuit to some degree; they now have full access to Superman’s origins with many thanks going to their superstar lawyer (you guessed it) Marc Toberoff. What they are going to do with the just the origins of Superman remains a mystery to me, because after the countless retellings of Superman’s beginnings, I’m pretty sure we weren’t going to see that story again anytime soon.

Back to Jack Kirby: His Estate is currently suing and sending termination of copyrights notifications to each of the big studios that have involvement with any of characters Kirby created. The rest of this article is background information on Jack Kirby and my own observations and opinions. I am not a copyright lawyer, nor do I claim to have extensive background knowledge on U.S. Copyright Laws; so if you see something I misinterpreted, please enlighten me.

This isn’t the first time Kirby and Marvel haven’t seen eye to eye on things. In a very detailed account over at The Comic Journal, Marvel was in a major dispute with Kirby during much of the 80s, regarding his  work from the 60s and 70s. At the end of the day (and after Will Eisner got involved), Marvel reluctantly agreed to give Kirby back 1900 pages of his work. That seems like a lot, but it’s actually less than 25% of what Kirby had done.

Kirby was the first illustrator hired when Jerry Iger and Will Eisner formed Eisner & Iger Studios in the 1930s.  Until 1978, when the copyright laws were changed, most if not all of the comic creators hired artists under a “work-for-hire arrangement”. In other words: artists didn’t own the rights to whatever they were paid to draw. The same thing is still done today in other business models – electronics and programming are two of the biggest examples.

When a programmer working for Microsoft writes a new program and it turns into the major code behind a new piece of Microsoft software, that programmer doesn’t own the rights to his code. He was paid by Microsoft to write it and has already been fairly compensated for his time and effort. He doesn’t have the right to sue once that program starts making millions of dollars, just because he is jealous.

I don’t claim to know the copyright laws inside and out, but to me it would seem pretty simple: If Jack Kirby was hired under those aforementioned circumstances, then any characters he created should not be his to own. Sure, he will always get “creative credit” for coming up with them in the first place, but it’s not like he thought them up in his garage and then Marvel came along and stole them in the night. From what I understand, Kirby was paid fairly to create those Marvel characters and without the company publishing his work, he would not have gotten them off the ground. Of course the reverse could be (and likely will be) argued – that Kirby created the most iconic characters in Marvel’s repertoire and without him they would have died a slow comic death.

(Head to pg. 2 to help answer the question, “Why Now?”)

Also on the podcast was TMB regular guest Christina Warren of Mashable.com and FlickCast.com. Here are the topics we covered:

• Jennifer’s Body
• Edward Norton claiming no cameo in Iron Man 2
• X-Men: First Class casting
• Nic Cage leaving Green Hornet, and the mess that movie seems to be in

We were going to cover a couple more items but we had so much fun just with those above that we ran out of time.

You can download it directly here or you can head over to The Movie Blog to listen to it (but do come back and tell us what you think!).

I’ll be doing another guest appearance on a well-known movie site’s podcast soon!

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)

To quote the late Queen of Blues, Dinah Washington, “What a Difference a Day Makes.” Just recently all anyone was talking about in the movie industry was whether The Final Destination was in indeed final and if Rob Zombie was done butchering horror films (to answer that last question, NO, he’s trying to tackle The Blob next – and I’m not referring to my first girlfriend from high school). But here we are, just a scant twenty-four hours later and the biggest fish in the marketing sea has just eaten the biggest fish in the comic book sea.

Of course, I’m talking about the news that Walt Disney Co. acquired Marvel Comics, Inc. for the meager sum of $4 billion dollars. It’s a great deal of money, and I don’t care what the nay-sayers out there gripe about, if I owned a prospering business and a mega-company offered to buy me out for an exuberant amount of money, I’d sell too. Heck, I’d go buy a special pen just to sign the papers! Anyone who says otherwise just isn’t being honest with themselves.

Disney C.E.O Roger Iger

Let me start by saying that like most of you, I too thought this was pretty much the end of hardcore Marvel comics, films and cartoons. Disney isn’t exactly synonymous with violence, so at first I can see how this would be a cause for concern. Read this quote from Disney chairman Robert Iger:

“We believe that adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation.”

Wait – that didn’t make you put down the Rolaids yet? Try this one:

“The acquisition of Marvel offers us a similar opportunity to advance our strategy to build a business that is stronger than the sum of its parts.”

Still nothing? Well on the conference call with investors shortly after the announcement, Iger said, “I think there’s a phrase, if it ain’t broke.” This is nothing new to anyone familiar with Disney’s business practices. They did not spend this much money just to ruin what they bought. Saying that just because Disney now owns our favorite comic book superheroes it will water them down and ruin them, is like saying you would go out and buy a Rolls Royce and then paint it to look like an ice cream truck just to sell ice cream to kids. Much like the aforementioned high school girlfriend – that’s just plain crazy; and if anything can be said about Disney, it’s that they are not EVER crazy when it comes to a business decision. Want to know the real reason they bought Marvel? Read this statement:

“We believe that adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation. The acquisition of Marvel offers us a similar opportunity to advance our strategy and to build a business that is stronger than the sum of its parts. [These shows are] right in the wheelhouse for boys.”

Disney has always struggled to find its place in the world when it came to reaching the teen/young teen male audience. It’s no wonder, because shows like Hannah Montana, The Jonas Brothers and every freakin’ princess movie ever made is geared and marketed towards girls of every age. Disney finally started trying to hit the boy demographic when it started up the TV channel Disney XD, which already shows 20 shows from Marvel’s arsenal, but it was having trouble finding an audience with its current lineup of characters. I don’t think they have that problem anymore. Now, with more than 5,000 characters to choose from, Disney can now move forward with some interesting shows.

Let’s go through a list of possible new ideas Disney could be kicking around:

TV Shows

Besides the obvious fact that we could see many new cartoons on the Disney channel, let’s not forget that Disney purchased ABC a few years back and has had much success with its lineup of shows – or have you forgotten about Lost? This same argument about watered down, kid-friendly, ponies, rainbows and flowers nonsense was floating around back then too. I don’t hear too many people saying that now.

Imagine if you will no more Marvel origin movies in theaters. All of them are now shown on TV running on a regular series and the movies can now focus on just being pure bad ass-ness fun. Does an origin story really need two hours to be told properly or could it just be done in forty-five minute segments over the course of a TV season? Keep the major characters in theaters, Avengers, Thor, Iron Man and such, but now audiences would get the chance to see more of the Marvel Universe and appreciate and enjoy lesser known characters like some many hardcore fans already do. It would also give those lesser characters a chance to build an audience that would potentially follow them to theaters.

Continue Reading ‘So Disney Bought Marvel: What Does It All Mean?’

OK, so just a few minutes ago Twitter literally exploded with news of a major financial announcement: according to The Associated Press, The Walt Disney Co. will acquire Marvel Entertainment Inc., for $4 billion in cash and stock.

Woah! If you ever wondered how much the Marvel Universe is worth, I think you just found out.

Under the deal Disney will now control and own 5,000 Marvel characters, including Iron Man and Spider-Man. If Marvel shareholders approve the deal, they will receive $30 per share and will also receive .745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own. Both the Disney and Marvel board of directors have approved the deal, but it still has to go through an anti-trust review. I don’t see there being any problem with the anti-trust review nor do I see the marvel shareholders turning up their noses to such a fantastic offer. Most likely, later this week, we should see final word on the resolution of this agreement.

Said Ike Perlmutter, Marvel’s Chief Executive Officer:

“Disney is the perfect home for Marvel`s fantastic library of characters given
its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses…This is an unparalleled
opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties
by accessing Disney`s tremendous global organization and infrastructure around
the world.”

So what does this mean to comic books fans? Well, it could be both very good and very bad at the same time. Let’s look at some quick pros and cons shall we?

Pro – Disney is a universal name with pockets so deep that God’s hand would have a hard time reaching the bottom.  Marvel is no slouch either in the household name department – but let’s face it, they are no Disney. All that extra money, means way more marketing and increased traffic within the theme parks (sorry Universal but looks like you might lose the X-Men characters in your parades.)

Con – With movies like Iron Man 2, Spider-man 4, The Incredible Hulk 2, Thor , The Avengers and Captain America on the horizon, what does this mean for their development? Iron Man 2 is already in full swing so I doubt we see any type of delay with that one, but with no other pre-production or principle photography under way on some other films, could we see some eventual delay(s)?

Pro – On the flip side, with Disney having such deep pockets, that means much more available funds to push MORE movies into production. It’s not like Disney is buying Marvel because they were threatened by Marvel’s market share and were trying to buy out the competition. No, Disney bought Marvel to use the property rights, not sit on them. This could mean we start seeing Marvel characters pushed into multiple forms of media. More cartoons, more comics, more live action TV shows and definitely more movies.

Con – We could find ourselves over-saturated with watered down superheroes, quickly written scripts and under produced adaptation that are Disney is just looking to make a quick buck with. They are, after all, trying to re-coup $4 billion dollars of investment. It is distinctly possible that quality could suffer.  Hopefully that won’t be the case, because whether Disney knows it or not, they are now under intense scrutiny from one of these largest, if not the largest, fan base in the world.

There are plenty of other pros and cons and we may discuss them in detail later today but for now we thought the news was worthy enough to get to you quickly.

What do you think of this mega-acquisition of Marvel by Disney? Does it make you as apprehensive as me for the future or elated that we may have an enormous opportunity to see more comic films in the future?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Screen Rant will keep you updated as news come out.

[UPDATE: For our analysis of what this could mean for future Marvel movies (and TV shows) check out our follow-up: So Disney Bought Marvel - What Does It All Mean?]

Source: The Globe and Mail

Disney Marvel Logo: Spoiler TV

In our last discussion of the story and characters of Wolverine 2, we talked a little about Liev Schreiber and what his thoughts were on the sequel.

At the time, he seemed not too interested in putting his body through all the physical work again, now that he’s over 40, but he did say that he’s very interested in seeing how the character of Victor Creed goes from how he portrayed him, to what we saw of the animalistic Sabretooth from Bryan Singer’s first X-Men movie.

Now, it seems that he’s changed his mindset and is in fact interested in returning to the role.

Schreiber, although a strange casting decision initially, was arguably the best part of the highly disappointing Wolverine origins adaptation. In a movie full of weak plot points, bad characterization and a terrible waste of great source material, Liev’s take on Victor Creed was one of the most enjoyable parts of the film.

Unfortunately, the story didn’t make much sense for him in the end and X-Men Origins: Wolverine concluded with Hugh Jackman’s character losing his memory and Sabretooth completely fine, running off after their team-up. From what was shown, Sabretooth has no idea that his brother doesn’t know who he is anymore. Knowing Victor’s nature and his relationship with his brother, more specifically his desire to compete with and be better than Wolverine, he wouldn’t just disappear – we know at some point, Victor would seek out his brother.

So, what happens to him between the end of that movie and where we see him in X-Men? For the most part, all of the films so far and the ones in planning are all sharing the same continuity which means this needs to be explained.

With the sequel following our favorite clawed mutant on his adventures in Japan, the story doesn’t really allow for Sabretooth to partake. However, Schreiber seems interested again and has an idea of what we could see.

“There’s been some smatterings of conversation about it, but nothing concrete yet… I had a ball doing it, so I’d do it again.”

Click to Continue Reading about ‘The Future of Sabretooth in the X-Men Films’ for much more!

The folks at Cinema Blend spoke with Liev Schreiber the other day during a press junket for his upcoming film, Taking Woodstock, and touched base with him on what his future may be in the X-Men franchise.

Unfortunately for fans of Schreiber’s portrayal of Victor Creed, the talented actor didn’t sound too enthused about the idea of returning to the role of Wolverine’s brother and arch nemesis. Join us as we discuss what the storyline of Wolverine 2 may entail in terms of characters and what other stories and villains could be introduced.

We’ll be touching on Silver Samurai, Team X, Omega Red and more!

In speaking with Cinema Blend, Schreiber pointed out that he may not be ready to play the part again.

“I’m over 40 now, and do I really want to go through the physical stuff that it took to pull that off again? I’m not so sure.”

Bah! If Hugh Jackman can do it, you can too, Liev.

I do understand what he’s saying though: by the time Wolverine 2 starts shooting, he’ll be in his forties. At the same time, if the filmmakers want Schreiber back, this is probably their last chance.

Storywise, I don’t know how they’d turn Wolverine and Creed against one other again, what with Wolvy’s memory loss at the end of the Origins film – especially since we already know the two characters don’t know each other in the first X-Men movie.

With Liev’s disinterest and the way the character has been treated in the series, I could see sadly writing Victor Creed and Sabertooth off as separate characters.

Cinema Blend’s Katey Rich made a good point on this, saying that Schreiber may not have much of a choice, assuming he’s signed to a multi-picture contract (which is pretty standard for these genre movies at Fox Studios).

That being said, if he doesn’t want to come back, his friend Hugh Jackman definitely wouldn’t force his return as a contractual obligation.

Continuing his thoughts on the Wolverine sequel, Schreiber continued,

“As an audience member, I’d be really interested to see how you’d go from the Liev Schreiber Victor Creed to the Tyler Mane Victor Creed [from X-Men]. So I’d like to see that.”

I think we’d all like to see that. It’d be a big let down (we’ve had far too many already) if the filmmakers just ended up leaving Victor Creed and never addressing how he goes from this:

The talkative and egotistical Victor Creed (with normal eyes)

…To this:

The dumb, slow and quiet animal, Sabretooth (with abnormal eyes)

Click to continue reading ‘Potential Villains of Wolverine 2′

Yesterday Screen Rant reported that director Bryan Singer is interested in returning to the X-Men franchise, six years after directing X2. Today we have another member of the X-Men team, Anna Paquin (who played Rogue in the first three movies), showing interest in doing another X-Men movie as well – in this case, the upcoming X-Men: First Class.

In a recent interview with IGN, Paquin talked a bit about the X-Men movies she’s starred in so far, and commented on her potential return to the series. When X-Men: First Class was first announced, Variety reported that the characters most likely to appear in the film would be Rogue, Iceman, Angel, Jubilee, Colossus and Shadowcat, amongst others. So does Paquin see herself returning as Rogue in the First Class spin-off?:

“Absolutely. Yeah… I would hope I could do a little bit more action next time, though. I kind of find it ironic that I did three big action films and did, actually, no action whatsoever. I mean I got some really amazing emotional story moments, but I didn’t really get to do the physical stuff.”

“You know, as much as I loved doing those films I was kind of like, ‘OK, so when do I get to beat someone up? When do I get to steal some powers?’ You know Sookie [Paquin's True Blood character] gets to do more action than Rogue ever did. So I’m just putting that out there. More action please, for next time.”

On top of the possible First Class character roster given by Variety, Screen Rant writer Rob Keyes speculated – based on the information we have about past and future X-Men projects – that the First Class line-up will probably include the likes of Beast, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Jean Grey and Storm. Sadly, according to X-Men producer Lauren Shuler-Donner, the ever-popular Gambit will not appear in X-Men: First Class, mainly due to continuity issues (although as Rob Keyes pointed out in his post, Donner’s reasoning doesn’t make much sense).

Screen Rant also reported on Gambit actor Taylor Kitsch’s suggestion of a possible X-Men spinoff featuring Gambit and Rogue. Kitsch said he would love to work with Paquin, and that it would be cool to have Gambit and Rogue in a film together. However, as Rob Keyes again pointed out, in the continuity of the existing X-Men movies, Rogue is introduced twenty years after Gambit’s appearance in  X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which would mean (if we follow continuity) a huge age gap between the two lovers.

Personally, I think they should just leave out the Gambit/Rogue relationship, simply because it poses too much of a problem for the established X-Men continuity. Although I’m not opposed to the idea of more X-Men spin-offs (even though Wolverine didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped), I would much rather them just continue on with the continuity established by the X-Men trilogy. To put it simply: they should forge ahead and make X-Men 4 using all the characters we know already (including Paquin as Rogue) while hopefully introducing a few new ones.

What about you – would you like to see Anna Paquin reprise her role as Rogue in another X-Men movie? Do you think the character could fit into X-Men: First Class?

X-Men: First Class is currently slated for release sometime in 2010.

Source: IGN and Variety