Looks like we may be getting some more X-Men movies coming our way, according to this interview Laren Shuler Donner did with Empire Online:
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2 — “That’s the furthest along of all the X-Men projects on the boil. It’s actually the story we wanted to use for the first Wolverine film, but [Fox head honcho] Tom Rothman preferred to set the character up with an origin story first. This movie will really focus on the relationship between Wolverine and Mariko, the daughter of a Japanese crime lord, and what happens to him in Japan…we wanted an A+ writer, so we want to Chris McQuarrie (Valkyrie, The Usual Suspects) … it’s very likely we’ll be shooting in Japan …Wolverine will be fighting in a different style to what we’ve seen before … There’ll be samurai, ninja, katana blades, different forms of martial arts – mano-a-mano, extreme fighting.”
- X-Men: First Class — “We want it to be like the recent, darker [Harry] Potters … The First Class comics are really fun – they’re funnier than any other comics I’ve read … I want to get a flavour of that world. Occasionally the kids will be in class, but more often they’ll be off on adventures … Right now the script is not done -we’re not where we want to be yet. We have to be careful that we don’t tread on familiar territory, that people don’t say, “Oh, I’ve seen that, been there.” But (screenwriter) Josh Schwartz has a great young pulse and he’s doing an amazing job bringing the characters to life. We want to make this a franchise, following these kids at the school, so the casting of the child actors will be all-important.”
- Deadpool — “I want to ignore the version of Deadpool that we saw in Wolverine and just start over again. Reboot it. Because this guy talks, obviously, and to muzzle him would be insane. I don’t see it as a problem that Ryan [Reynolds] is also playing Green Lantern … Wade Wilson is a guy who unfortunately gets cancer, and volunteers for a test that will give him healing powers. He is a bad ass, a wise-cracking mercenary, who will go out and kill anyone for money. But the thing about him is that, underneath it all, and he wouldn’t want you to know this, sometimes he’s not such a bad ass after all. Sometimes he does the right thing … It’s going to be a dark, snarky, very funny movie. It’s the hardest story to tell, I think … We’re right in the thick of talking to writers right now, and hopefully by November we’ll have decided who’s going to do it. We need someone really imaginative because we want to do some really innovative, ambitious stuff … I don’t know that Fox will agree with all our decisions, but we’ll see!”
- Magneto — “David Goyer has written a brilliant script. It starts in the concentration camps and has Magneto coming out of there. But you know, I’m not sure that film is going to be made … Magneto, I think, is at the back of the queue. Maybe it’ll get made in five years – who knows? …to find a younger actor to fill Ian’s shoes, that’s pretty daunting. It’s not easy.”
Don’t forget – X-Men Origins: Wolverine is out now on DVD and Blu-Ray. We reviewed that one here.