“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” might be scheduled for a May 1 release via 20th Century Fox, but it looks like reshoots are in the cards according to Collider.
Reshoots aren’t uncommon in films and are not an immediate sign of disaster, but these are apparently “extensive” reshoots and enough to seemingly worry the comic-book enthusiasts at Collider.”We’re not talking about a few days of pick-up [shots either],” they warned.
Apparently first-time big-budget director Gavin Hood (known for his smaller work on the South African film “Tsotsi”) has been struggling to get the movie he wants made and has been warring with the studio. Richard Donnner (“Superman I and II” and all the “Lethal Weapon” films) was spotted on set a few times which has led some to speculate that he might have been doing more than just standing around and watching.
Hood is at the helm of the reshoots, so the fact that he hasn’t been replaced must be seen as good news, but as Collider puts it, “Fox and [the director] must have come to an understanding and are clearly trying to salvage one of the summer tent-poles of 2009.”
The website also puts 20th Century Fox film choices into question and wonders if they’re the right studio for what is supposed to be a gritty character study of someone who goes on to become a “super hero” (and an anti-hero at that).
Frankly, their concern seems valid. The ‘Wolverine’ trailer that appeared a few weeks ago were a joke and even we were big fans of “X-Men 2” (one of the top 3 comic-book films so far). It’s almost like the original 1982 “Wolverine” four-part Marvel series (a classic) didn’t even exist (and it sounds like that part of the story isn’t even attempted, but couldn’t they at least use the dark tone?).
The “good” news is that journalists are actually being invited to witness the reshoots which are usually done in as clandestine a fashion as possible, but perhaps they’re convinced and or optimistic that the changes they’ve implemented will be for the better and will generate some more optimistic press (even the geeks have been semi-skeptical so far). Trying to capture new “weather conditions” is Fox’s official reason why the reshoots are taking place. You sure it’s not because they realized the whole endeavor was a really silly idea?
Oh yeah, and apparently Wolverine was at Normandy (this is probably why we stopped reading comics; that and the fact that origins on mysterious characters always ruin the mystique).
It’s just like we were saying – origins are a cash grab move made by movies or comic book houses that ruin the characters’ mystiques. I don’t hold much favor for Wolverine stuff since he now has kids on top of having an origin story. He’s just been run into the ground, it seems.
If there’s anything good that can come of the ever-growing geek bloc, it’s that they would try to pressure the movies’ producers, in light of the producers’ ideas of what needs to be done to a film property.
I think Fox sounds pretty worried about things in general (particularly amidst all of their Watchmen nonsense) and that maybe their paranoia got the best of them.
lost track of Wolverine and his origin long ago, but i read somewhere that fans persuaded Fox to include Gambit in the story (because in one of the 10,000 X-men, origin re-writes it was revealed that Gambit) had something to do with it, i forget what).
but i think that’s gay. I hate when fans influence the creative. If the filmmaker or studio is that unsure of what they’re making or what their direction is they a) aren’t the right people for the job and b) don’t know the material well enough so they shouldn’t be making it, period.
As I was writing it, I kind of realized that what fans are pulling for may not (and usually isn’t) more attractive a concept that what the producers want to turn a given property into.
It just seems like an unequal but opposite reaction that could (but probably won’t) counterbalance or lessen the direction a producer may want to go with a story (particularly if revisions are in the offing). Again, what I just wrote doesn’t sound all that plausible. Oh well.
Some of the extra characters thrown in sound okay on one hand, but sound like a fan/producer clusterfuck of what’s bound to be a “you asked for it, here it is” revue of sorts. That ought to disprove my admittedly crappy theory!