David Slade Addresses Daredevil and The Wolverine Rumors
Posted 03.22.11 by Ryan
Last week, just as 20th Century Fox hired David Slade (30 Days of Night, Twilight Saga: Eclipse) to direct a new Daredevil movie, early rumors began piling up that the movie would be a "continuation of the Daredevil saga", implying that it wouldn't completely ignore the 2003 Daredevil starring Ben Affleck. Other rumors claimed that Slade's Daredevil would be either "a bit Batman Begins" with the villain learning "who Daredevil really is and tries to destroy him" or, more pointedly, be an adaptation of the "Born Again" storyline written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli from the mid-1980s run of the Daredevil comic book series.
Meanwhile, casting rumors also sprang up, with Robert Pattinson, Bradley Cooper, and Garrett Hedlund all mentioned as potential actors for the role of the blind lawyer Matt Murdock, who moonlights as the masked vigilante Daredevil, the "Man Without Fear".
With all of these rumors already swirling, Slade took to twitter to set the record straight.
Forgot to look at the internet for a few weeks and its a litany of false (and not so far off) rumors. So without breaking confidentiality, yes Daredevil, we have a great outline for a very strong character driven take on Mr. Matt Murdock. It will bare no relation to the previous Daredevil movie in any way. We are at early planning stages and have not yet discussed any cast.
Slade's mention of an "outline" means that the draft screenwriter David Scarpa was hired to write in February of 2010 isn't likely to be used.
Slade was also aware that potential rumors could spring up about his involvement with Fox's The Wolverine, the stand-alone, non-sequel sequel to 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Before director Darren Aronofsky landed the job, Slade was on the
short list of directors for the movie, even confessing that he had a meeting with actor Hugh Jackman about his potential hiring.
Now that Aronofsky has left the project, sites like Deadline claim that Slade is a "an obvious top candidate" for The Wolverine. Slade revealed that he has not been approached.
WOLVERINE, there have been no discussions about this project to date. Interesting to see what will happen with that as the again excellent script by Chris McQuarrie was set largely in Japan. So that's all the news that's fit to print.
Considering the tragedy currently facing Japan following the tsunami and earthquake disaster, Entertainment Weekly reports that Fox is not "aggressively" looking for Aronofsky's replacement as they said when the director's departure was first announced. According to the Site's source, the studio is "in no rush" to find another director.
I think we’re going to let it air out a bit before we approach another director. The one good thing, after losing Darren and what’s going on in Japan, is that we have a great script and the star attached and ready to go.
Since the project is still ready to go, however, the source also claims that once a new director is hired, production could begin as early as this summer.
SuperHeroHype vehemently disagrees with the EW source, reporting that their source says if Fox "found a director tomorrow", The Wolverine could still meet its July start date.
Whether Fox will approach Slade is unknown, though the director is still attached to the long-developing, vampire movie, The Last Voyage of Demeter, and could direct that next considering his cast is still lined up for it.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Noomi Rapace and Ben Kingsley want to do it, so do I.