Another Director Drops Out of The Wolverine
Posted 06.13.11 by Chris
While his X-Men teammates are saving the planet from World War III in X-Men: First Class, Wolverine is having a hard time just getting back on the big screen.
Mark Romanek is the second director to pass on The Wolverine. (Back in March, Darren Aronofsky turned the project down because of the expected year-long shoot in Japan.) Romanek, who directed One Hour Photo, Never Let Me Go, and music videos for Nine Inch Nails and Johnny Cash, said he passed on directing Wolverine because he didn't feel passionate about it.
That's just one of those stories that floated around. I was on their list, I received the script months ago. It didn't seem like my kind of thing. [The script] was a terrific version of that kind of thing, but not something I really felt passionate about.
According to Moviefone, still in the running to direct Wolverine are Jose Padilha (Elite Squad), Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), Justin Lin (Fast Five), Gavin O'Connor (Miracle), James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma), and Gary Shore.
So it looks like audiences might have to wait a bit longer for Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, a fan favorite, to return to the big screen, which is bad news for the X-Men franchise and Fox. Though X-Men: First Class crossed the $100M in its second week, it's the weakest performing X-Men movie of the five-movie franchise and critics say it's because it's the first that didn't include Wolverine, save for a small cameo. X-Men: First Class was supposed to serve as a reboot to the franchise but after a soft opening of $55M, it's unsure if Fox is going to continue with the First Class storyline, despite it being one of the better reviewed X-Men movies (though X-Men Origins: Wolverine had a $85M opening weekend, it had a 37 percent rating on RottenTomatoes.com, compared to First Class's 87 percent ranking).
So now that Romanek is out, who do you see directing
The Wolverine? Should Fox continue the
X-Men franchise without Logan? And should it really be that hard to find a director to helm an established and successful movie franchise?