Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Killer Start Pushed Back to February 2011
Posted 05.28.10 by BrentJS
The start of production on New Line Cinema's and Legendary Pictures' Jack the Giant Killer has been pushed back from this summer to February 2011, according to THR. Among the reasons cited for the delay is director Bryan Singer's interest in being able to pre-visualize scenes with the digital giants in-camera with the live-action actors (a la James Cameron's Avatar) and the need for more time to work out the complex process.
Loosely based on the English fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk" and the 1962 movie of the same name, the Jack screenplay was written by Darren Lemke and Mark Bomback and tells the story of a young farmer who travels to the land of the giants to rescue a princess. Singer had already begun meeting with actors such as Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) and Andrew Garfield (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) for the lead role, but no casting decisions had been made yet.
What's really interesting about this news is how the delay will affect Fox's upcoming X-Men prequel, X-Men: First Class. Singer, who launched the franchise as the director of the first two X-Men movies, was initially announced as director of the prequel, but had to step down and take a role as a producer because the planned summer start of production would have conflicted with his Jack duties. As a result, director Matthew Vaughn was brought in to direct. With Singer's summer schedule now freed up, will Fox rescind the offer to Vaughn and put Singer back in the director's chair?