Written by: Rob Keyes
SCI FI Wire spoke with producer Lauren Shuler Donner over the phone last week to promote next Friday’s opening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and they took some time to discuss several other projects that are in development for Fox Studios, including the Magneto spinoff and X-Men: First Class.
The first question was simply asking for a status update on X-Men Origins: Magneto for which Shuler Donner responded (responses below edited by SCI FI Wire):
“I don’t know. We have a great script. Honestly, we have all been just so focused on getting Wolverine out that we didn’t take the time to sit down and explore ‘What are the movies we’re going to do next within the genre?’ We will do that. We will do that. We all want to. Magneto is a fantastic script, and hopefully we’ll make it. I don’t know.”
I love the Magneto character and he certainly has an intriguing history to flesh out a nice story for a feature film, but I’m very fearful of what Fox may do with the character.
If things stay on track to what we’ve seen in the X-Men films and the Wolverine spinoff, we’ll likely see a convoluted history of the character loaded with other popular characters that don’t belong. Maybe they’ll throw in characters Cable and Bishop and some Sentinels just for the sake of it.
We knew scripts had been written and in November of last year we reported on the plot synopsis of the Magneto origins story. Whether or not this movie will get the greenlight however, depends on the success of Wolverine’s solo spinoff. SCI Fi Wire asked Donner if the reaction to the Wolverine movie will affect the Magneto spinoff:
“I think this is partly to do with it, yes. And then we have First Class, which is based on the X-Men comics’ first class and is very literal to the title. It’s the first class in Xavier’s school. But that’s just being written. I haven’t even seen a first draft. And I’m producing that with Simon Kinberg.”
Last year, it was reported that Josh Schwartz (The OC, Gossip Girl and Chuck) was hired by Fox to write the script for the First Class film which would tell the story of the original five X-Men characters (at least in the comics) when Xavier’s school for the gifted first started up. Donner was asked what interests her about the First Class movie and it as a potential franchise:
“I like kids. I did produce Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire. I do like those kind of teenage movies; I really do. Part of it takes me to my roots. It’s action. There seems, to me, to be more humor, or more potential for humor. I really like that idea. The relationship … I don’t want to get into what the script is about, but it provides a bit of a lighter touch to the franchise.”
I like the idea of a more focused X-Film with a 5-mutant team but a kids movie? Is that what the next X-Men films will be? I’m not sure what the fans of the comics or previous X-films will think of that.
No comments:
Post a Comment