Screen Rant » x-men

What X-Men 3 Could Have Been

Rob Keyes — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:54:25 +0000

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’

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SR Picks [Video]: X-Men Fan Becomes Pyro

Rob Keyes — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:52:16 +0000

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.

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?

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The Next X-Men Films Part Two: Deadpool, Magneto

Rob Keyes — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:57:38 +0000

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!

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Will Bryan Singer Direct X-Men 4?

Rob Keyes — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:17:31 +0000

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…

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Jack Kirby’s Estate Sues Disney/Marvel

Paul Young — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:49:41 +0000

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?”)

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Screen Rant on The Movie Blog Podcast

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:44:28 +0000

Hey gang, yesterday John Campea of TheMovieBlog.com was kind enough to invite me to be a guest on his Movie Blog Podcast. John’s podcast is the longest-running movie podcast on the net (and the third oldest ongoing podcast, period).

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!

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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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So Disney Bought Marvel… What Does It All Mean?

Paul Young — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:24:08 +0000

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?’

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Disney Buys Marvel

Paul Young — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:44:45 +0000

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

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The Future of Sabretooth in the X-Men Films

Rob Keyes — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:53:58 +0000

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!

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Potential Villains of Wolverine 2

Rob Keyes — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:31:33 +0000

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′

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Anna Paquin As Rogue In X-Men: First Class?

Ross Miller — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:19:42 +0000

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

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Bryan Singer Interested In Returning To X-Men

Ross Miller — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:52:45 +0000

Those hoping for director Bryan Singer to return to the X-Men franchise can sit up and take notice: Singer has said himself that he would “love” to make a return to the franchise! Those are certainly words that fall gladly on X-Men fan’s ears.

In a recent interview with Total Film, Singer was asked about how he feels looking back on his time making the X-Men movies and if he wished he’d stayed on for the third one. He then revealed his interest in going back to the franchise:

“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.”

Singer belies the success he’s had as a filmmaker, both with the first two X-Men movies and Superman Returns. He could have one of those “just in it for the money and nothing else” kind of attitudes, but he truly sounds like a passionate director and that’s something we all want from our X-Men helmer.

After Singer’s admission that he’d love to return to the franchise, the question arose of his return taking the shape of directing the Magneto origin movie. He offered a tentative response that suggested the possibility that he might do it, but it was nowhere near any sort of confirmation:

“The only thing that concerns me about Magneto is that if the prequel were to follow the track I used in X-Men, which is Magneto’s history in the concentration camp, then I’ve lived in that world. Apt Pupil, X-Men and now Valkyrie…I’ve lived in that Nazi universe for quite a while. I just might need to take a little break before I do something like that.”

So he’s neither counting in or counting out the idea of doing Magneto. I never actually thought about it until I read what Singer said, but he has been in the world of WWII Nazi concentration camps, cinema-wise, for three of his movies – all that depressing subject matter is bound to take its toll.

Having said that, even with the seriousness of that era and the terrible things that happened (shown at the beginning of the first X-Men when we see Magneto’s childhood in the concentration camp), this is an X-Men movie we’re talking about, so surely it’ll be action-orientated.

As a bonus for Singer fans out there, he made a quick comment about doing another Superman movie. He sounded even less sure about Supes as he did about X-Men:

“I don’t know, I don’t know. There are still issues…I just…I just don’t know. I don’t necessarily…I don’t know. It’s one of those things where…It’s so weird talking about stuff unless I’m about to ramp up and shoot it.”

I know I’m not the only person who’d love to see Singer return to the X-Men universe. Even X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner said personally, in an interview with IESB, that, “nothing would please me more than to bring Bryan Singer on for another movie.”

Ah, so it’s not just us fans who want him back, eh?

Singer did a fantastic job bringing the world and characters of the X-Men universe from the comics to cinematic life. Just think for a minute how tough a job that was to adapt from comic page to screen – Wolverine’s costume change, for example, from the black and yellow to what they had in the movie was an element that was necessary to change, but nonetheless ballsy considering the ravenous comic-book purists that are out there.

Singer then went on and improved upon the first X-Men on pretty much every level imaginable. X2 remains one of the best comic-book movies to date (The Dark Knight came along and knocked it off the top spot, for me), and sadly, when Singer left the franchise, the third movie fell way below the level he had set it at.

After Wolverine, the X-Men movie universe really needs to return to the level it once sat at – in my opinion Singer is the most fitting man to do just that.

Do you think Bryan Singer should return to the X-Men universe? Should he return by directing the upcoming Magneto movie?

Sources: Total Film, Coventry Telegraph (The Geek Files), ComingSoon and IESB

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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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Brett Ratner Wants To Be On The Comic Book Movie A-List

Kofi Outlaw — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:13:50 +0000

Everyone’s favorite director, Brett Ratner, recently went on a bit of a rant to MTV News, talking about how he would love to direct more comic book movies, if only there were still some of the ‘best heroes’ to go around.

Now, I know what a lot of you are already thinking–but at least take a look at what the man had to say before you go ripping into him, please.

“I would do any superhero movie that I was asked to do,” Ratner told MTV News. “But I wouldn’t have been interested in ‘Iron Man.’ I have a lot of respect for [Jon Favreau], because to me, it was a B-character. ‘Iron Man’? … But look what he did.”

Those comments definitely got under some people’s skin–this story was sent my way under the subject-heading, “Brett Ratner slams Jon Favreau and Iron Man,” for God’s sake. But I don’t see it as that bad of a comment: Iron Man was a B-list superhero (at best) and Jon Favreau deserves a lot of respect for taking the character and turning him into a mainstream icon.

However, I will call Ratner out on the fact that he said he wasn’t interested in comic book “B-characters.” I mean the guy is going to be producing and directing Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood, a comic book that was basically a C-list knock-off of The Avengers. He’d better hope that he too can work that Favreau magic at the box office.

For you Ratner-haters out there, here’s something Brett said in that same interview that will truly make you shudder with the thought of “What if?”, only to make you warm with joy all over again:

“I was so upset when I left ‘Superman,’” said Ratner. “[Bryan] Singer has his ‘X-Men,’ [Christopher] Nolan has ‘Batman‘ — there’s nothing left. ‘Hulk‘ has been exploited already. There’s nothing left for me.”

“I mean, I’m not going to go and do the Silver Surfer or something,” shrugged Ratner.

So we know that Silver Surfer is safe, but could you imagine if Ratner was handed a Batman or Superman film, or (God forbid!) another crack at X-Men? Don’t think it couldn’t happen! This guy is THE go-to guy in situations where celebrated directors depart from their franchises. Once Chris Nolan is tired of Batman…

Seriously though, I’m going to use this platform to proclaim that I’ve never understood all the Ratner-hate. Or for that matter, the intense hatred for X-Men: The Last Stand that I come across every day in the blogosphere. X3 wasn’t that bad of a movie; I keep watching it (gasp! I own it!) trying to get on the same page as a lot of my blogger-brethren, but I can’t do it. The film just isn’t that bad. I mean it certainly mucked with the X-Men continuum by killing off Cyclops and “killing off” Professor X… but the fight sequences were some of the best of the series (IMHO) and the plot (though a bit over-crammed) worked for me. X3 was a nice end chapter to the trilogy and a good setup for a fresher, younger, X-Men franchise down the line. Even Kelsey Grammer’s Beast was OK (though the makeup was a bit corny).

There, I said it. It’s so good to finally be able to come out of the closet as an X3 liker (not lover).

So, personally speaking: I would let Brett Ratner have a crack at another well-known comic book hero(es). It would be a B-list or C-list hero, but I would let him have a chance–if he deemed the project “worthy,” of course.

OK I’m finished. Now you can all go ahead and rant back about how you REALLY feel about Brett Ratner, X-Men: The Last Stand and Kofi Outlaw for saying he’s cool with both. I await your judgment.

Source: MTV News

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Is Fox Addressing Fanboy Fears About Key ‘Wolverine’ Characters?

Rob Keyes — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:58:21 +0000

Today, the brand new official trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine has hit the internet (click on the link to check it out).

In short, it’s good but not great. I find it rather disorganized and slow for the first half as much of it is simply rehashing what we saw in the first full Wolverine trailer. The second half however, is pure action and it makes up for it. The one thing this trailer does do right is showcase much more of the central mutants that many fans care about, notably Gambit, Deadpool and Cyclops – the three characters I’ll focus on here.

Gambit holds a special place in my heart as my favorite X-character. From the get-go of the announcement of his inclusion in the Wolverine Origins film project I’ve been concerned about how he will be adapted into this Fox Studios live-action film – especially after what had been done to characters in X-Men: The Last Stand.

Way back in November, we got our first ever look at Taylor Kitsch in costume as Gambit and he was doing one of the things he does best: playing some cards. The problem was that the image didn’t give off the Gambit vibe that many of us fans of the character have come to know and love – the only resemblance we got from that was long hair and some purple in his apparel (oh, and the ladies) and I started to get a little worried that they were just throwing in the name Gambit into the movie just for the sake of including a popular character… which is what they are doing regardless as he shouldn’t even be in Wolverine’s origin story.

On top of that, there was some unfinished footage for the movie presented as a teaser during the Fox Panel at San Diego Comic Con last summer. This teaser showed us a little bit of Gambit and his cards but no classic charge-up effects (his mutant ability is to charge objects with explosive kinetic energy and when said objects are charged they would glow in this bright purplish color). My thoughts (and hopes) were that they simply hadn’t finished the special effects yet.

Well, that part turned out to be true as later, in mid-December, came the first official full length trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine attached to the disappointing movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still – It was awesome (the trailer, that is) and as a result, my excitement for the movie skyrocketed. The scenes with Gambit revealed many of the things I was worried may be omitted from the movie; We saw that awesome glowing effect I mentioned above, him throwing cards, stuff blowing up and some bad-ass staff action.

But wait… One thing noticeably missing was that his eyes were not his trademark black and red color from the comics – I could live with that for the movie adaptation. No big deal if they nail the other (more important) aspects of the character, right?

Come February, the marketing for the movie was really starting to pick up. We were seeing new images and posters rather frequently and Fox had launched a three-part series of 60-second TV spots during some of their primetime TV programming. These three trailers were titled “Outcasts”, “Brothers” and “Legends” and each focused on a different facet of Wolverine’s story (Click the names of the trailers to see them).

The two big things we got from the new footage were seeing Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool talk for the first time, making a little joke about Sabretooth, and the reveal of the inclusion of a younger teenage Cyclops. This made many wonder why Cyclops was in the movie and how it could tie into the story. I had figured that he was included by Fox to strengthen the bridge to the X-trilogy in a way which movie goers could recognize easily from the trailers and that the new younger actor playing him, Tim Pocock, was being set up for the upcoming X-Men: First Class movie.

From these new videos we also got to see a few new snippets of Gambit in action but like all of the previous footage, not one scene of Gambit talking. Hmmm… they sure made an effort to show off his combat skills and mutant ability but they’ve not done the same to show whether or not he’ll have his trademark accent. Gambit is the “Ragin’ Cajun” – They wouldn’t dare do that to this character would they? I’m getting nasty flashbacks of Colossus’ Russian accent (or lack thereof) from the X-Men trilogy.

Now we’re caught up to the present and today a new full length trailer for Wolverine has debuted online. A very significant portion of the trailer is dedicated to showing scenes of the three characters in question: Gambit, Deadpool and Cyclops. In the teaser, we are conveniently given a big close-up of Gambit’s face and look! Red and black eyes! What a coincidence. Well, that’s another character trait I can check off on my list. But still, not one scene of him talking… They did however include some sounds effects of him charging objects up. They want us to know they are attempting to make this character true to the comics but it will be all for not, if he doesn’t talk the talk… literally.

Then there’s Deadpool, the wisecracking and crazy-but-lovable mercenary with great powers and a sweet outfit – At least, in the comics. After some Hasbro Toy reveals of this character (played by Ryan Reynolds – a perfect casting choice) hit the web, many fans were worried about the lack of a costume and how poorly designed he looked. We had not seen otherwise from the trailers and still haven’t. You can check out what I had to say about his character and what it may mean for Gambit here and join in on the discussion. Keep in mind, none of this was/is is confirmed and we also don’t know 100% if that thing is Deadpool. It could be that this character is the mysterious Weapon XI who’s listed as a main villain in the movie and reported as Wolverine’s dance partner in the final battle. Or, the toy packing could be misleading us all… What a relief that would be.

Or perhaps not…

[Continue to Page 2 for the second half of the article.]

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Cool New Pics From ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’

Rob Keyes — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:42:40 +0000

This weekend I wrote about the first official picture of Gambit from X-Men Origins: Wolverine and now we have several new photos from tha film that have appeared online for our viewing pleasure. There are five in total and are all live shots from scenes in the film.

If you got a chance to see the low-quality leaked footage of the teaser trailer featured at this summer’s San Diego Comic-Con, these may look familiar to you as they are all directly taken from scenes shown during that trailer.

The images are not of the highest quality, but what they depict is pretty awesome.

Take a look and see what you think:

Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber faceoff in X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Wolverine charges down the cell block, claws ready

Wolverine and Sabretooth vs. Firing Squad

Wolverine and Sabretooth raid the beach

Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine taking an unpleasant bath

Where’s the arm hair, Wolvy?! And why don’t any of the other soldiers get to grow cool facial hair?

My only gripe with these is how Wolverine is just as big as Sabretooth in the film. The actual Wolverine character in the comics is only 5′3″ compared to Sabretooth’s 6′6″ build – a vast difference in physical stature. We know Hugh Jackman is way too tall to be Wolverine but that being said, the filmmakers make no effort to make him appear smaller than Liev Schreiber’s Sabretooth.

In the comics and even in the classic 1990s cartoon, the rivalry between the two arch-enemies was made so significant because of how massive and intimidating Sabretooth was in comparison. But in this film, he doesn’t even seem to be a physical threat as he’s the same size… even arguably a little bit smaller in some of the images. To me, there’s no match, Wolverine plus Adamantium claws beats other dude of same size with less efficient claws. In Bryan Singer’s X-Men, that Sabretooth felt larger and more like the proper character from the comic books.

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Liev Schreiber, but I dug Tyler Mane’s Sabretooth if we’re talking about the characters representing the source material.

What do you think?

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is directed by Gavin Hood and features a very recognizable cast including Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds, Dominic Monaghan, Taylor Kitcsh, Lynn Collins, Kevin Durand and Danny Huston.

The first official trailer debuts next Friday, December 12th, alongside The Day the Earth Stood Still and the film hits theaters May 1, 2009.

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‘X-Men: First Class’ Movie Moving Forward

Rob Keyes — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:16:28 +0000

It looks like 20th Century Fox will be continuing the X-Men franchise not just with solo spin-offs. The studio signed Josh Schwartz this week to write X-Men: First Class to bring the franchise to a younger generation.

Josh Schwartz is the creator, writer and producer of the television shows The OC, Gossip Girl and Chuck and this will be his first shot at developing a project for the big screen. You can probably guess who the target audience will be.

The film will undoubtedly follow (at least in some way, shape or form) the general idea and story from the X-Men: First Class comic book which Marvel debuted in 2006 as a mini-series, later continued as an ongoing series. The book follows the original five X-Men (for the most part) in their teens working for Professor X as it was when the X-Men comic began back in the 60’s.

That being said, the comic may have no bearing at all on the film… in fact it probably won’t – we all saw what happened with X-Men 3 and pretty much all the other Marvel properties they own rights to. They don’t seem to pay homage to the continuity of the source material at all – so I would not be surprised to see the First Class team feature characters that definitely do not belong. Just look at X-Men Origins: Wolverine; it has Gambit captured and as part of Weapon XI program, which makes no sense at all to anyone familiar with the comics.

My fear is that Fox will just randomly pluck any X-characters who they think are popular and throw them on the same team without regard to who they are and where or when they are from. And it’ll be a shame if they do that since the X-Men are badass in their own right and they don’t need to be screwed with to sell.

I’m a big X-Men fan myself and I’m always up for seeing more feature films about them. However I wish they could just turn some of the millions of stories already written (and illustrated) for them and adapt them for film, rather than just using the brand and character names for whatever they want. There’s a reason the X-Men comic has been around so long and has spawned so many books, games, merchandise and television programming – you don’t need to make up stuff to substitute for that.

I have no idea what to expect from Schwartz, other than the project obviously being targeted as a teen drama for teens. Apparently there’s also a possibility of him directing which makes it even more unpredictable.

You know my thoughts. What are yours?

Source: Variety

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X-Men: First Class On The Way?

Kofi Outlaw — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:30:14 +0000

The guys over at Latino Review put their peepers to good use picking out this little tidbit buried in the many movie titles recently announced on Production Weekly: X-men: First Class seems to be the next film in the series going into production!

I can’t say that I’m that surprised, really. I can only assume that the execs over at Fox, which owns the rights to the X franchise, are peering through peepholes into Warner Bros. studios, trying to figure out how to put together a ma$$ive payday like The Dark Knight has been. While X-Men Origins: Wolverine promises to be a hit, I’m sure Fox knows that to really milk the cash cow would take something truly groundbreaking and unexpected. (After X3, I for one was just WAITING for the other shoe to drop on X4: The New Class. Shudder.)

To be honest, I’m feeling a bit clairvoyant, again. Since seeing The Dark Knight, and re-watching Batman Begins three more times, I’ve been pacing my living room stroking my chin, trying to imagine the kind of films Marvel could make to rival the Batman Begins Trilogy in both tone and quality. X-Men: First Class was one my more promising conclusions.

For those not in the know, “X0″ would cover the early days when most mutants were still “in the closet,” until renowned philanthropist Charles Xavier opened the doors to his school for the “gifted.” His first five students in the comics: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Hank McCoy (The Beast), and Warren Worthington (The Angel). Of course, that roster totally throws off the continuity of the current X-Men trilogy, but I’m sure all that will be worked out at the script stage (if it hasn’t been already).

Here’s my personal vision for X-Men: First Class (in 3 acts):

Act 1: Real world setting and tone, modern teenagers trying to tackle the usual hardships like hair in strange new places; Ice and/or wings growing where there wasn’t any before; telepathic voices changing; and laser beams shooting uncontrollably from the eyes when excited. The kids parents freak, even going so far as to shun or abuse their children. (Seeing ‘the real world’ react to the sudden emergence of these ‘freaks’ would be a very interesting take on the X universe. People could really empathize with that.)

Act 2: In steps Charles Xavier with his long time compatriot, Erik Magnus Lensherr. The two build the school, (and the X-base beneath, Magnus’ idea, ‘just in case,’) as a haven for the emerging mutant populace. The first class is enrolled but are awkward with one another, unsure of themselves and their strange new powers. Xavier and Magnus, (in two subtly different ways,) help them conquer their insecurities and embrace their powers –even show them how to work as a team. However, just as the kids come into their own, intolerance and fear amongst normal humans bubbles over. One student pays the ultimate price. Magnus, broken-hearted and disillusioned, gets twisted into the militant terrorist, Magneto.

Act 3: Magneto tries to lure Xavier and the kids over to the dark side with him. Xavier refuses, causing an irrepairable rift in their friendship; the kids stand with Xavier’s ideals, Magneto mockingly dubbing them his “Xavier Men.” Big final battle: the kids manage to stop Magneto from doing any real damage, but another big price is paid: Xavier’s legs get crushed. In the aftermath, humans fear mutants more than ever; new mutants are either forced to, or choose to reveal themselves and be who they are; Xavier’s school welcomes those in need; the first class steps up to become the X-Men; all while Magneto sits lonely, recruiting help where he can, secretly missing the family at Xavier’s school he has abandoned.

Fox execs, I can have a full script ready in a month! (P.S. if my 3-act masterpiece should end up as the official script, remember your favorite neighborhood film clairvoyant over at Screen Rant called it first!)

For now though, let me know what YOU think X-Men: First Class should be all about! (Maybe your idea will end up in the final product, and you’ll walk away without a single cent!)

Source: Latino Review via Production Weekly

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Curious New Set Pics From X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Kofi Outlaw — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:25:15 +0000

El Toro over at Latino Review has posted new pictures from the set of the upcoming X-men Origins: Wolverine, from a scene that looks to be set during WWII???

Now, as any fanboy worth his adamantium knows, Wolverine’s mutant-healing factor has the added effect of slowing down his aging process to a crawl. Various storylines in the comics have hinted that Wolvy could be as old as 100, leaving the filmmakers behind Origins a lot of history to play with. And, If these photos are any indication, this film is aiming for a scope much more epic than originally thought. Let’s just hope it doesn’t stretch itself too thin by trying to do too much. Save something for Wolverine 2!

In the meantime, take a look at the pics and let us know what you think.

Source: Latino Review

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