• Greg Ellwood shrewdly notes potential motive to announcing Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) first as presenters at this year’s Academy Awards. [Awards Campaign]
• Tom Hooper and Geoffrey Rush respond to the notion of cutting “The King’s Speech” to appease a PG-13 rating. [Inside Movies]
• “Master Class: Editing James Franco…with James Franco meets on Thursday afternoons weekly.” [Movieline]
• Premiering a Brad Pitt character poster from “Inglourious Basterds.” [Ain’t It Cool News]
• Digging into the world of fan-made films across the pond. [The Guardian]
• John Hiscock talks to J.J. Abrams about selling a re-imagined “Star Trek” to classic stars and fans alike. [Daily Telegraph]
• Peter Knegt kicks of “(123) Days of Summer: An Indie Film Guide.” [indieWIRE]
• Grady Hendrix looks at the comic book history of this weekend’s box office champ: Wolverine. [Slate]
• Pointless Megan-Fox-looking-hot video that is bound to sell more issues. I gladly watched. [Esquire]
• Meanwhile, test your Wolverine wisdom. [USA Today]
• “Daniel Craig: ‘I’ll keep doing Bond until my knees go’” [The Independent]
• Mark Olsen talks to the principles on Fox Searchlight’s summer rom-com, “(500) Days of Summer.” [Los Angeles Times]
• Celebrating Swine Flu in style with a list of 13 deadly movie outbreaks. [Premiere]
“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” opens nationwide today but it dropped just a little earlier across the pond. Owen Vaughan at The Times of London has put together a nice dissection of the Wolverine character with comic writers Len Wein and Chris Claremont in mind but I really wish Wein had participated because the entire piece is filled with Claremont quotes.
The significance of the two men is undeniable. Wein, of course, created Wolverine way back in 1974 as a sideline villain in the pages of “The Incredible Hulk.” You might remember that photo of Hugh Jackman meeting his maker, so to speak, at San Diego ComicCon last year.
The character’s first appearance came on the final page of issue #180 of the series, but it’s #181 that stands out most to fans (and commands the most dollars if you’re looking to bulk up your Wolvie collection). The cover is a classic image: Wolverine, in his odd recognizable regalia, slashes violently at the Hulk as the villainous Wendigo stalks the two of them in the background.
Claremont, meanwhile, gave Wolverine all of his characteristic charm and, together with artist Frank Miller, added texture and depth in “Wolverine” mini-series of 1983. As Claremont says in the Times interview, “The film is based on the Wolverine Weapon X series and [Paul Jenkins’s] Wolverine Origin but the essential character is my guy.”
Further expanding on his vision of the then nine-year-old character:
“My idea of Wolverine was that if you walked into his room half of it would be a total trash heap, a sloppy couch and more beer cans than you can imagine, and half would be the quintessence of economy and grace – a stand for his sword and maybe a picture on a table. Wolverine is essentially at war with himself. There’s a part of him that wants to be this pure, pristine man of honour and there’s a part of him that wants to say, ‘F*** this’ and hit the bars. He hasn’t found a way to reconcile those two things.”
When Ang Lee set out to direct the first feature film adaptation of Marvel’s Incredible Hulk property five years ago, some things were…different.
Lee was coming off of the major awards success of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which led audiences – many of them skeptics – to ponder what he might be able to accomplish with the psychology of another action-oriented effort.
However, Marvel had its hands tied. Unlike Detective Comics properties, which fall under Time Warner ownership and therefore receive continual distribution out of Warner Bros. Pictures, Marvel was still at the whims of studio discretion, its properties scattered to the winds despite having the consistency of an Ari Arad behind the scenes.
Nothing could be said less of Lee as a filmmaker when the finished, disastrous product was unveiled. He took a gamble and hit craps…hard. And he bought back in two years later, bouncing back with a Best Director Oscar to show for it. But Marvel was left with a serious consideration that had likely lingered for many years: how to get a developmental handle on a catalogue of material that was bursting at the seams with cinematic potential.
The difference now is Marvel Studios, which saw its first production “Iron Man” held on high by critics and audiences alike just one month ago. It was a home run for an unexplored property on the big screen, but could it be duplicated? And via a franchise that wasn’t nearly far enough removed from it’s immediate past to be considered stale by any means?
Apparently so. Because Louis Leterrier’s “The Incredible Hulk” is not only likely to be the biggest, most exhausting (in all the good ways) film-going experience you’ll have this year, but it also holds the second turtle dove of a young studio’s seizure of what promises to be one of the greatest cinematic roll outs the genre has, or perhaps will ever see.