It was announced today that Darren Aronofsky is no longer the director of the X-Men franchise movie, The Wolverine, starring Hugh Jackman. According to Deadline, his withdrawal is associated with his personal situation with his breakup with Rachel Weisz and custody issues revolving around her son.
20th Century Fox released a statement indicating that they respect his reasons for pulling out and they look forward to working with him again in the future.
Darren Aronofsky stated that it became clear that filming The Wolverine, which will be almost entirely filmed in Japan, would keep him out of the country for nearly a year.
Thus ends what I considered to be a movie that I had put on my high anticipation list of movies to see. Having become a fan of Darren Aronofsky’s work from films like The Fighter, Black Swan, The Wrestler and such, I became infatuated with his approach and style to steering a movie into a certain dark and very human realm of reality. That would have been the perfect fit for the always tense Logan aka Wolverine.
Knowing he was behind The Wolverine just made that film a more fascinating prospect plus, I felt his association with the movie was going to give it legs outside the fan-boy click of comic fans, drawing in fans of his other directorial work. But as it stands, the film may just have to stand alone on genre fans… and we all know that sometimes genre fans just aren’t enough to make a movie as big as we’d like it to be.
Alas, now 20th Century Fox needs to find a new director. And hopefully one they’re willing to pay for, that might bring the same kind of validity to the franchise.
I wonder if Joss Whedon will be free in time? I mean heck, he did write Astonishing X-Men and that went over pretty well. I’m sure timing and geo-location restrictions might impeded this wishful thought, but then again, who will be able to spend almost a year overseas?
Any thoughts? I’m tapped out!
I saw this news about Darren Aronofsky exiting The Wolverine on Deadline!
About Bruce Simmons
I've been writing newsletters since 1999. Of late, I've been focusing on the entertainment consumer angle on mostly the sci-fi, fantasy and action genres of TV, movies and books.
{ 0 comments… add one now }