Wow, no sooner had I finished taking easy pot-shots at “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” than ultra-big news broke that the follow-up to that slapped together heap of mediocrity (for more pithy bitterness, read my original review) is rarin’ and ready to go before cameras next January. Hooray for us.
According to trusty sources at Hollywood Reporter, Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) will embark on a Japanese adventure, based loosely on the classic Frank Miller and Chris Claremont’s take on the character, in which he will take up the deadly martial arts and romance the pants off of a beautiful and elegant oriental actress (Rinko Kikuchi, get your agent on the phone!).
The script for the film has been written by the not-so-prolific Christopher McQuarrie, who previously penned the fantastic “The Usual Suspects,” the decent “The Way of the Gun” and the monotonous “Valkyrie.” While I’d absolutely love to wave my pom-poms in triumph that the creative journey for the project is being guided by an accomplished Oscar-winning screenwriter, I’d be remiss to not mention that the first “Wolverine” was written by Daniel Benioff, the talented scribe behind “Brothers” and “The 25th Hour.” Thus, it’s kinda hard to have much confidence that 20th Century Fox won’t water McQuarrie’s work down until it resembles a flavorless mutant milkshake.
I’m also less than convinced that the studio and the franchises’ producers will do proper service to the original comic-book arc — which had Wolverine engaging in a tragically brief love-affair with Mariko, a prominent Yakuza crime-lord’s daughter, and battling the likes of Silver Samurai, Viper, Mastermind and the deadly female ninja Yukio — considering their previous bungling of both the Dark Phoenix saga and the Weapon X storyline. I figure the most likely scenario is they’ll distill it down into a thoroughly generic action movie, throw in a few random one-note good-guy mutants (maybe Bishop, Havok or Strong Guy?) and thoroughly bastardize a popular villain a la Deadpool. Perhaps they’ll make Yukio a Caucasian dude with the ability to shoot throwing stars made out of explosive energy from his/her wrists! I know, it sounds crazy, but this sort of wrong thinking is not without historical precedent.
I do have to chuckle about the HR’s anonymous source who promises that “Wolverine 2” will be “very different from the first film.” Is there any chance we can get that in writing?
With a summer 2012 release date no doubt staked out, I’m going to be really curious to see how this project ultimately turns out. I find it unfathomable to believe that Fox didn’t take at least a kernel of fans’ toxic feedback regarding the first “Wolverine” to heart, so time will tell if they’re willing to take the necessary precautions and time to ensure that the franchise doesn’t wind up mired in the same cinematic toilet bowl as Fantastic Four.
What do you guys think? Is there still hope for an X-traordinary “Wolverine” movie, or is it pretty much a lost cause? And how would you like to see this series progress? Hit us with some verbal snikts on our comments section and howl till ya just can’t howls no more!
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Follow Cam Smith on Twitter at http://twitter.com/camspcepisodes.
I may not like it, but I’ll still see it.
i think they will learn from their previous mistakes and give us a much better part 2!!! 🙂