According to previous reports, Fox was looking at a Fall 2011 start date for the Christopher McQuarrie script for Wolverine 2 starring Hugh Jackman and directed by James Mangold. It now looks like production will not begin until the Spring of 2012.
Even though the studio says it never gave an official production start date, there are many rumored factors that would push back the start date. The bulk of the screenplay takes place in Japan, and most of the shooting would be on location. According to studio insiders, it’s currently very difficult to find suitable shoot locations in Japan due to all of the weather-related considerations and current rebuilding process. It is now being rumored that the shooting will take place in Canada in conjunction with a secondary filming location.
The other factor that is being rumored to affect the start date is that production will wait until after Jackman finishes making Les Miserables.
The production has already faced some set backs, when Darren Aronofsky bowed out as director in March. By June, 20th Century Fox found their director after one of the most highly anticipated announcements of the summer. That set up the studio thinking that it could begin production in the fall.
What ever happened to simple numeric suffixes to titles like Jaws 2 or Friday the 13th Part 4: The Dream Master? In the past decade, films have gotten more ridiculous with titles of sequels like Step Up 2 The Streets or Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Now, Darren Aronofsky’s sequel to 2009′s X-Men Origins: Wolverine is taking another route by going by the name The Wolverine.
In an interview with HitFix, Aronofsky explained that his film isn’t a traditional sequel.
The film that he’s directing is officially called “The Wolverine,” and there won’t be a number attached to it. In our interview, he referred to the movie as a “one-off,” and he emphasized that the film isn’t a sequel in any conventional sense.
In 2009, Origins was said to be the beginning of a film series based around the backstories of specific characters. For a while, Fox was toying with the idea of doing an X-Men Origins: Magneto with Ian McKellan attached. That idea was more than likely put on the shelf due to a certain Hobbit.
We already know that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is heading to Japan in the upcoming film, in which we expect to see run ins with the Yakuza-like gang The Hand and possibly even the classic villain Silver Samurai.
The Wolverine begins shooting in March for a possible release in the summer of 2012.
As we do each week, here’s the list of all the Marvel comics on sale this week. We’re sure you know that new comics come out on Wednesday and some of the ones we’re excited about this week include the new Astonishing X-Men #32, Captain America Reborn #4, Psylocke #1 and The Torch #3.
And, as we do each week, be sure and check out some of the great art from a few of these upcoming comics after the jump.
This week on The Flickcast, your tireless threesome dive into some great new topics including the film Kick-Ass being picked up by Lionsgate, the box office and merits of District 9 versus G.I. Joe, Frank Darabont taking on The Walking Dead for AMC, Christopher McQuarrie writing a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Bryan Singer’s Battlestar Galactica movie and a whole lot more.
The team also made some new picks this week including Christina’s pick of the documentary Boy Interrupted, Matt’s pick ofBoston Legal, featuring James Spader and William Shatner, and Chris’ pick of Robert Kirkman’s excellent comic The Walking Dead.
As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.
With X-Men Origins: Wolverine opening as one of the biggest box office films of the Summer, it was completely inevitable that a sequel was on the way. We are now getting word that Christopher McQuarrie, writer of films such as The Usual Suspects and The Way of the Gun is now taking on the writing duties for that sequel.
McQuarrie has worked in tandem with Bryan Singer, who directed the first two X-Men films. Singer and McQuarrie both worked on Valkyrie and The Usual Suspects, and the Oscar winning writer even did an uncredited rewrite on the first X-Men script. When it comes to the story, The Hollywood Reporter says that fans should remember the source material:
Hugh Jackman is set to return as the Marvel Comics character, a mutant with healing powers and a skeleton laced with the indestructible metal known as adamantium. Jackman is also producing via his Fox-based Seed shingle along with Lauren Shuler Donner.
The movie’s story line will take its cue from the early 1980s Chris Claremont/Frank Miller miniseries, which is set in Japan and features Wolverine dealing with ninjas as he struggles whether to follow his animal killer instincts or the life under a samurai’s code of honor and respect.
X-Men Origins reportedly brought in $180 million in the domestic box office, and $363 worldwide. With a predecessor like that, there is no doubt a sequel will do well, especially if word of a Deadpool spinoff is still happening.
If you thought for one second Ryan Reynolds appearance as Wade Wilson and then as the killer Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a coincidence or in some way not a ploy to spark interest in a Deadpool spin-off movie, I’ve got a bridge in New York to sell you. Of course it was and 20th Century Fox has announced that the movie is in the works. Now that we know the movie is being made, there are still many questions that need to be answered.
Chief among them is if Deadpool will be disfigured as he is at the end of X-Men Origins: Wolverine or if he will be somehow portrayed by Reynolds without the make-up and as the actor normally appears. Another question is what character will stand opposite Deadpool as the defacto ‘hero” of the movie. Finally, when in the X-Men timeline the movie would take place seeing as how the events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine take place well before those of the other X-Men movies. Well, perhaps this interview over at Hitfix with Reynolds himself can shed light on some of these questions.
According to Reynolds, when asked about the Deadpool feature in the article he is “Intimately involved with it. We’re just trying to break a story right now and figure out who the villain is going to be and all that stuff. But, it’s going to be just like the comic books. I’m gonna have a messed up face and you may see some flashbacks of Wade earlier in his life, but primarily what you see is what you get in the comics and that’s the goal. And there is no better place to draw material from then the comics which are incredible.”
Well, there you have it. It seems that if Reynolds gets his way (and he might) the character will be depicted exactly as he is in the comics. No doubt this is great news for fans of the comics everywhere. Now, if he can just stick to his plans and not get sidetracked or swayed by studio pressure, this movie might have a chance. Whatever happens, we’ll find out when the film hits theaters in 2012.
It’s funny, even though the major (and minor) Hollywood studios seem to be cranking out as many comic book movie adaptations as they can, most of them don’t really end up being much of anything to write home about. And some others, such as Daredevil, Batman & Robin, Ghost Rider and Catwomanreally suck.
In fact, last year I did two articles for ComicMix about the what I considered, up to that point, the Best and Worst comic book to film adaptations. Since then, we’ve had several more movie based on comics. But for the most part, I think my picks still stand as they are. In a similar vein is Zac Bertschy new article over at Topless Robot. In the article, Bertschy outlines what he feels are the five things comic book movies need to stop doing.
I don’t want to take anything away from the article by talking about it too much here. However, here’s some highlights that I particularly like. First, according to Bertschy, Hollywood needs to stop trying to cram so many villains into each movie. Second, he feels comic book movies need to stop wasting awesome side characters like they do, for example, in the X-Men movies.
Finally, he feels strongly that Hollywood should stop making feature-length origin stories because most people either already know where Batman comes from or don’t care — they just want to see him in action. Its a great article and covers a lot of ground.
I agree with almost everyting he says in it as well. Although, I did enjoy X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Batman Begins and Iron Man, all of which are origin stories. I guess Hollywood can get it right sometimes.
Last week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt had to go it alone and discuss topics such as Predator and Robert Rodriguez news, blockbusters like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Trek, the fate of TV shows like Dollhouse, Lost and Sons of Anarchy and lots more.
This week, Christina is back and the trio hits the ground running with discussions on the box office success and relative merits of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the latest G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra trailer, the upcoming District 9, produced by Peter Jackson, the appeal of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, renewals for some of the team’s favorite shows like Southland and Heroes, J.J. Abrams taking on an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower and the potential box office for Star Trek’s opening weekend.
Plus, the team makes more cool picks this week including one of Matt’s favorite TV shows, Party Down from Rob Thomas and Paul Rudd, Christina’s pick of the very funny Hot Fuzz featuring Simon Pegg of this Friday’s Star Trek and Chris’ picks of the comic book Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon and the movie The Player, directed by Robert Altman, written by Michael Tolkin and starring Tim Robbins.
As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter or via email. Thanks for listening.
We may see a prequel Alien, one of the greatest and scariest sci-fi/horror films of all time, in the near future. At least if, according to an interview with Fox’s Co-Chairman Tom Rothman over at IESB, Ridley Scott decides to do it. Rothman gave the interview, which featured some more tidbits about a potential Alien prequel and also the reboot of the Predator franchise, while on the red carpet for the Austin, TX premiere of X-Men Origins: Wolverine last night.
During the interview, Rothman was asked about an Alien prequel and said: “There’s been some talk. Ridley Scott, Ridley is right now working on Robin Hood, but I think he’s toying with the idea and that would be great for us. I mean, it’s always been a matter of, really, if you can get the originator to do it that would be the greatest thing, so I’ve got my fingers crossed, all of them.” Rothman, when asked about the announced Predator reboot, said it was going forward and that Robert Rodriguez’ film, now known as Predators, would be under the writer/director/producer/editor/steadicam operator’s total control.
Other projects mentioned during the interview included Daredevil and James Cameron’s Avatar — which will likely have footage from it from shown at the San Diego Comic-Con in July. So, a potential new Alien film under the direction of Ridley Scott. Robert Rodriguez has total control over a Predator reboot. We will see footage from Avatar at Comic-Con and Fox may end up doing another Daredevil movie. Of those things, the first and the third most interest me. The second and last? Not so much.
We’ve talked about the film and the controversy before at the site and on The Flickcast, so we find it highly unlikely that the person (or persons) responsible for leaking Fox’s upcoming giant new movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, would want publicity of any kind. Whatever their reasons for leaking the film, its now out there and their mission, be it to punish Fox, to make some kind of “statement” or whatever, is accomplished.
We certainly don’t believe that one of them would actually agree to a video interview — even if they are in disguise. Still, according to io9, that’s exactly what happened. Over at the site they’ve got the video, which popped up at YouTube, of the purported Wolverine leaker in all of his ski-mask-wearing glory.
Really though, we have a hard time swallowing this. So, if you’ve got a few minutes to kill and want to see what a hoax looks like, take a look.
The real X-Men Origins: Wolverine hits theaters this Friday.
Okay all you Wolverine fans eagerly anticipating the X-Men Origins: Wolverine film, load up your cars or hop on a plane and head to Tempe, Arizona. Why, you may wonder? Well, according to MTV Splashpage, if you want to see the film before anyone else, that’s where you’ll have to go as its premiering there on April 27th, one day before its national release.
According to the article, it was a pitched battle but scrappy Tempe beat out several other contenders including Philadelphia, PA and Austin, TX for Wolverine premiere bragging rights . But in the end, Tempe came out on top.
So, even if you’ve already seen the leaked version of the film, I’m pretty sure you’ll probably want to see the final version as well — I know I do. However, you may want to hit the road early if you’re going to make it to Tempe on time for the premiere. Something tells me the traffic is going to be a bitch.
For those of us not in Tempe, X-Men Origins: Wolverine hits theaters April 28th.
According to previous reports, Fox was looking at a Fall 2011 start date for the Christopher McQuarrie script for Wolverine 2 starring Hugh Jackman and directed by James Mangold. It now looks like production will not begin until the Spring of 2012.
As we do each week, here’s the list of all the Marvel comics on sale this week. We’re sure you know that new comics come out on Wednesday and some of the ones we’re excited about this week include the new Astonishing X-Men #32, Captain America Reborn #4, Psylocke #1 and The Torch #3.
This week on The Flickcast, your tireless threesome dive into some great new topics including the film Kick-Ass being picked up by Lionsgate, the box office and merits of District 9 versus G.I. Joe, Frank Darabont taking on The Walking Dead for AMC, Christopher McQuarrie writing a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Bryan Singer’s Battlestar Galactica movie and a whole lot more.
With X-Men Origins: Wolverine opening as one of the biggest box office films of the Summer, it was completely inevitable that a sequel was on the way. We are now getting word that Christopher McQuarrie, writer of films such as The Usual Suspects and The Way of the Gun is now taking on the writing duties for that sequel.
If you thought for one second Ryan Reynolds appearance as Wade Wilson and then as the killer Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a coincidence or in some way not a ploy to spark interest in a Deadpool spin-off movie, I’ve got a bridge in New York to sell you. Of course it was and 20th Century Fox has announced that the movie is in the works. Now that we know the movie is being made, there are still many questions that need to be answered.
It’s funny, even though the major (and minor) Hollywood studios seem to be cranking out as many comic book movie adaptations as they can, most of them don’t really end up being much of anything to write home about. And some others, such as Daredevil, Batman & Robin, Ghost Rider and Catwoman really suck.
from Rob Thomas and Paul Rudd, Christina’s pick of the very funny 
featuring Simon Pegg of this Friday’s Star Trek and Chris’ picks of the comic book 
by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon and the movie 
, directed by Robert Altman, written by Michael Tolkin and starring Tim Robbins.
We may see a prequel Alien, one of the greatest and scariest sci-fi/horror films of all time, in the near future. At least if, according to 
We’ve 
Okay all you Wolverine fans eagerly anticipating the X-Men Origins: Wolverine film, load up your cars or hop on a plane and head to Tempe, Arizona. Why, you may wonder? Well, 
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