Well it looks like the list of contenders for the director of Fox’s The Wolverine has been narrowed down to eight. Following the sudden departure of Darren Aronofsky shortly before filming was to commence, Fox began searching for a replacement for the Hugh Jackman-starred follow-up to Gavin Hood’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Now, Showblitz reports that the shortlist of contenders for the job is as follows: Doug Liman (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) Jose Padilha (upcoming Robocop remake), Antoine Fuqua (Shooter), Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go), Justin Lin (Fast Five), Gavin O’Connor (Warrior), James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma ) and commercials director Gary Shore.
With a script from Christopher McQuarrie, The Wolverine is largely set in Japan. Filming was poised to take place in that country, but it’s currently unknown if that’s still the plan given the natural disaster that recently ravaged the landmass. Hit the jump for more, including my thoughts on this list.
While none of these choices are as interesting as the prospect of seeing Aronofsky take on a superhero flick, I’d personally like to see either Romanek or Mangold’s take on the material. I found Romanek’s Never Let Me Go to be vastly underrated, and he was poised to take on the beastly character of The Wolfman before dropping out of that film over creative differences. Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma showed his penchant for staging great-looking action set-pieces anchored by intense character drama, and Knight and Day was an incredibly fun and criminally overlooked adventure-flick.
Ultimately, though, this list seems to include directors that lean more toward “eye-candy” material than I was hoping after Aronofsky’s involvement. Lin definitely knows how to stage action but hasn’t really tackled any sort of serious material before, and Fuqua hasn’t made a good film since Training Day (and even that’s stretching it). It’s really just hard to care about this movie if they’re going for a straight popcorn flick, especially after the first film. Hopefully they’ll end up choosing someone who can do something different with the material. We’ll find out soon enough.
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Wolverine’s claws = worst CGI ever?
all CGI budget was in Hugh Jackman’s salary
none of them names really come close to Aronofsky
They should scrap this film ( and Jackman), and reintroduce Wolverine in a X-Men First Class sequel.
One concurs.
What happened to Doug Jones?? I thought he was in “final talks”?? He would’ve been AMAZING. Romanek is the only decent director on this list and he doesn’t even come *close!*
**Duncan Jones. My apologies. Damn autocorrect.
The directors considered for The Wolverine:
Doug Liman (Mr. and Mrs. Smith)
Jose Padilha (upcoming Robocop remake)
Antoine Fuqua (Shooter)
Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go)
Justin Lin (Fast Five)
Gavin O’Connor (Warrior)
James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma )
Commercials Director Gary Shore
Out all of them, I think Justin Lin, Fuqua or Mangold may direct the film but my choices for the directors should direct The Wolverine are Ridley Scott or John Hyams who directed Universal Soldier Regerenation.
Regeneration was a great action movie, the stunts were awesome and the fight scenes were perfect.
Just give Hyams a great script then he can do it right and Ridley Scott of course now that he is directing Prometheus, he can’t this movie.
I just hope they don’t screw it up because X-Men Origins Wolverine was awful because of the characters not being handled propley and the time line was confusing, this was a prequel.
How bout an Old Man Logan movie instead? That would be wrecklessly amazing. Holy shit, that would be amazing. Who to cast as Old Logan though…Thats a tough one…but wow, what an amazing film that could be.
But who would you cast instead of the Hulk/Bruce Banner? After all, Hulk is with Marvel Studios! And Wolverine (and the rest of the X-Men) are owned by Fox! So, which mutant would you cast instead of the Hulk?!
And they can’t use Hawkeye either! Or Red Skull. Or Doom. So they could have Magneto still ruling, and maybe Emma Frost (instead of Doom). But who else? Definitely not the Kingpin or Spider-Man’s daughter (unless they cast her as a mutant).
Well, there goes a great movie, and, oh look on the horizon, here comes another wallpaper-bland CGI-fest that cocks up a great script! What about Martin Campbell, or better still, wait for Darren Aranofsky to sort his personal life out, and let him do the movie he was originally going to do. But this is Fox, so they’ll no doubt screw it up (sigh)…
DAVID CRONENBERG.
“Lin definitely knows how to stage action but hasn’t really tackled any sort of serious material before”
Watch “Better Luck Tomorrow”.
And Manglod cannot make good action scenes.