With all the positive press surrounding X-Men First Class, it's easy to forget that there has been another X-Movie in development for months, albeit one that I can't imagine anybody actually wants to see. Even members of the cast said that Wolverine was rubbish.....
But I digress. Via showblitz, we have learned that not only is Wolverine 2 still an active property, but that they have now whittled their director list down to eight: Jose Padilha, Doug Liman,Antoine Fuqua, Mark Romanek, Justin Lin, Gavin O’Connor, James Mangold and Gary Shore. Hmm.
There are undoubtedly some talents there (especially Romanek, who made Never Let Me Go recently) but there are also some action-oriented names there like Lin and Liman. Does this mean that Wolverine 2 won't be as cerebral and different as Aronofsky suggested? SHOCKING SURPRISE.
Of course, it remains to be seen who will take this project on - they could all say no - but the project is still on the move. Whilst it may make business sense, they'd really have to improve on the last one to make it a worthwhile addition to the franchise, which is now picking itself up after the double blow of X3 and Wolverine. On a related note, on a number of occasions the producer extraordinaire Lauren Shuler Donner (wife of Richard) has spoken of how they pitched X4 & X5 to Fox and they loved it, so will be pursuing that, along with a sequel to X-Men First Class.....
Not only is that confusing, it's bizarre. Surely it would make more sense to throw more investment and time into the revitalised franchise and not flog the original one? It's not like you could get any of the cast to return, they were almost universally wary of X3 in the first place.
