Joaquin Phoenix is picky about the projects he chooses, and for good reason. He’s an incredible actor, and he’s no doubt inundated with offers for all kinds of films at any given time. Recently, however, he’s flirted with the prospect of tackling a big franchise movie. He was in the mix to play Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and he was in prolonged negotiations with Marvel Studios to star in Doctor Strange before eventually deciding the undertaking wasn’t for him. Most recently, he was under consideration for Star Wars: Episode VIII. Now the triple Oscar nominee has decided on his next project, but it’s not exactly what people may be expecting.
Per Deadline, Phoenix is in talks to reunite with his Signs and The Village director M. Night Shyamalan on a new film that would start shooting this November in Philadelphia. Moreover, while the title and logline are being kept under wraps, this new movie is being produced by Jason Blum, who produced Shyamalan’s upcoming found footage pic The Visit. The report says this reunion be more in line with The Visit, budget-wise, than something like Shyamalan’s disastrous franchise play The Last Airbender.
Signs is an incredibly effective film and I like The Village much more now than I did on first viewing, but it’s impossible to ignore Shyamalan’s recent string of misfires. Could a reunion with Phoenix make audiences forgive Airbender and After Earth? It helps that Shyamalan recently found success on the small screen with the ratings hit Wayward Pines, and again Phoenix is a brilliant actor, so I’m very cautiously optimistic about this one.
What about you, folks? Are you willing to give Shyamalan another shot if he’s got Phoenix by his side? Does everyone still hate The Village as much as they did when it first came out? Sound off in the comments below.
