‘Wolverine 2’ heading to Japan

Hugh Jackman has been talking to MTV about the next installment of the Wolverine franchise:

During this weekend’s Teen Choice Awards, Jackman devoted part of his acceptance speech (“Wolverine” won the action/adventure film category) to teasing the aforementioned sequel — and Logan’s impending journey to Japan.

“Who knows, maybe Wolverine will use one of these when he heads to Japan,” Jackman told the crowd, holding up the surfboard that served as the award. “See you next time around!”

Madeline Stowe to direct Wolverine, a sparkly vampire and Rachel Weisz

Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz and Robert Pattinson will star in the period drama Unbound Captives for Hyde Park Entertainment reports Variety.

Madeline Stowe and her husband, actor Brian Benben, penned the script under the pseudonym O.C. Humphrey back in the early 90’s.

Variety have the news and go on to say that Madeline Stowe was offered $3 million for the script in 1993 and later $5 million, but she turned the offers down.

“There was never a moment’s hesitation on my part, but it felt unreal, and I can
remember my husband putting a finger across his neck to signal not to take the
offer…Gil made me realize it when he said there isn’t anyone who’s going to
make the movie you want to make…”

Originally she had hoped to take the lead role for herself when she wrote it, but now she wants to direct the film about a woman (Weisz) whose husband is killed and her two children kidnapped by a Comanche war party in 1859.

She is rescued by a frontiersman (Jackman), while Pattinson will play the son.

“I saw three actresses, and knew after meeting with Rachel that she was the
person I wanted to hand this role to…Robert said yes last fall, before
everything broke with ‘Twilight.’ Hugh said yes a couple of weeks ago.”

Intersting news and good to see them sticking to their guns.

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Make your own Wolverine claws.

You will believe a man can fight a cardboard box.

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Deadpool movie is good to go

Fantastic news about fans of the Merc with a Mouth – that includes me (the image above is via Geek Tyrant).

Twentieth Century Fox has begun development on Deadpool, an “X-Men” spinoff that will be crafted as a star vehicle for Ryan Reynolds, who played the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The character is one of the most popular in Marvel Comics’ X-Men universe. Deadpool is Wade Wilson, a mercenary who, dying of cancer, submits himself to the Weapon X genetic alteration experiment and emerges as an indestructible semi-sane anti-hero.

Reynolds seemed destined to play the character. In one reference in the Marvel Comics, Deadpool is described as a mix between “a Shar Pei and Ryan Reynolds.”

In one of the “Easter egg” endings of “Wolverine,” Deadpool is seen rising from the rubble and whispering “Shhh” to audiences. The Deadpool we saw in the film is not quite like the one we saw at the end of the Wolvie film.

The film will be produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Marvel.

According to a source close to Fox, the Deadpool spin-off film “a complete exploration of this unique character.”

Fox is also in the formative stages of a “Wolverine” sequel that will encompass the samurai storyline that was hinted at as Wolverine sat in a bar in Japan as the film concluded.

Separately, Fox is developing Magneto, a film about the X-Men villain with a script by Shelton Turner, and X-Men: First Class, which Josh Schwartz is penning.

Great news about the Deadpool film (Check out my review of the Wolverine movie). I really hope they keep it close to the comic book character. I want to see him break the fourth wall and know he is just a comic book movie character. What do you want to see in a Deadpool film?

Which Marvel Mutant do you want to see next in their own film?(answers)

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Source: Variety
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Hugh Jackman developing Wolverine 2, Personal Security and Drive

Hugh Jackman and Seed Productions partner John Palermo are ramping up several projects for the “Wolverine” star according to Variety.

Fox and Seed are in development on a sequel to “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which topped the domestic box office over the weekend.

The Seed partners have begun planning the sequel, which they are squarely focusing on the samurai storyline originated in the comic series, and whose Japanese locale was teased after the film’s final credits. A writer has yet to be hired.

It will be great to see Logan in Japan as that was a major part of his history. I want to see a whole heap of ninjas.

Fox has just closed a deal to acquire “Personal Security,” a spec script by Matt Lieberman. Jackman will star as a tough Gotham police detective forced into bodyguard duty for a spoiled teen heiress who is receiving kidnapping threats. Jackman and Palermo will produce with Tapestry’s Michael Schreiber.

While Jackman has not set his next star vehicle, he has gotten revved up over “Drive,” a Seed-produced adaptation of the James Sallis novel set up at Universal.

Jackman will play a solitary man who drives race cars by day and getaway cars by night in Los Angeles. Jackman was energized by the latest draft written by Hossein Amini, who turned in a script that Jackman said captured the tone of a Steve McQueen film.

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Hugh Jackman to visit Ghostopolis

Hugh Jackman is on a comic book roll at the moment and /Film have some news on his next comic book based project.

After a successful $87 million opening weekend for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Disney has announced tonight that Hugh Jackman will star in their adaptation of another upcoming graphic novel called Ghostopolis. Written by Doug TenNapel, the story centers on a man who works for the government’s Supernatural Immigration Task Force – his job is to send ghosts who have escaped into our world back to Ghostopolis. When a living boy accidentally is sent to the other side, the agent must team with a female ghost (and a former flame) to bring him back. With Disney developing, expect this to be family friendly.

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The many endings of Wolverine – Deadpool and Spoilers ahoy!

As you know the X-Men Origins: Wolverine film has a number of different endings after the end credits (check out my review). io9 have tracked them down and they are as follows.

Wolverine ending via Comic Book Movie – I don’t know whether this is in fact true or not but in the cinema that I saw this film in after about 30 seconds of credits there was a scene with Stryker walking down a road and being stopped by several soldiers in regards to him killing a general earlier in the film. After the entire credits there is then the scene that I had previously heard about, of Wolverine sitting in a bar and speaking in Japanese saying that he is drinking to remember

Deadpool ending – The Slumz – Basically they zoom in on the rubble of the destroyed nuclear plant. We see Deadpools hand out of the rumble and then we see his head on the floor. We then see a guy in a long black over coat with his hood up, kneel down and pick up the head. We then hear dialogue as the camera pans around, ” who the hell are you supposed to be?” and as it pans around we see its Wade Wilson. (Ryan Reynolds). then the screen fades to black. BTW its after the credits.

So Wade is alive and well… Weapon XI was a Wade Clone…. DEADPOOL lives.

This last description may not be totally correct though as Steve Zagar left this comment on the io9 post:

I work at a theater and just screened it. I got the Deadpool ending. No one in a black coat. The hand moves and we see that “Weapon XI’s” head is sitting there and his mouth is now open and he says. “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

I saw the first ending and thought it was okay. Nice to see Logan in Japan. As for the Deadpool ending it sounds as if the studios realised that Deadpool is hugely popular and they had to dig themselves out of the ending they had originally made. Getting Ryan Reynolds in for re-shoots could well have been to set this up. Seems a bit odd that they’d introduce cloning technology here without any previous reference which makes it seem like a last minute add on.

If it is just Deadpool’s head saying “shhh” then I assume they are saying his hyper healing facter has kicked in and he’ll reattach his head and then Deadpool will kick off. I don’t think he’s ever had his head cut off in the comic book but he does take an awful lot of punishment so it is not that big a stretch and it would explain him getting the healing factor and his disfigurement without the whole cancer side of things being involved. Plus it would go a hell of a way to tip into total madness.

Which ending is your favourite? Which is the correct Deadpool ending? Have you heard of any more or is it just the two?

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine, 2009 – Movie Review

Director: Gavin Hood
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Lynn Collins, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds, Dominic Monaghan, Daniel Henney, Kevin Durand, Taylor Kitsch
Running Time: 107 minutes
Score: 7 / 10

This review by the all powerful, all mighty, full of the awesome Live for Films…that’s me.

Last night my Wife and I went to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I’m a long time comic book geek and have always enjoyed the adventures of Marvel’s favourite mutant. We both enjoyed the X-Men films. I thought the second was the best and the third the weakest, but they never really capture Wolverine in his true berserker state that we have seen so many times in the comic.

How did Wolverine’s solo film manage then? It does have its flaws (some pretty big flaws actually) but is a most enjoyable blockbuster film nonetheless. Apologies if this review skips around a bit, but that’s how I roll and also how the film progresses.

As it started up we see a young boy ill in bed being tended by his father (the guy who played Shane in Neighbours) while another young lad with bad nails looks on. Bad things happen, claws pop and a howl to the skies puts the young Wolvie and Sabretooth on the run.

During the build up to the film I had been really excited seeing photos of Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber in character during the Civil War, the two World Wars and the Vietnam War. Schreiber is excellent as Sabretooth – menacing, psychotic and just plain nasty. You’ll be pleased to know that his bounding lope type thing you see briefly in the trailer is a lot better and more convincing in the final film.

I thought they would spend a bit of time developing the relationship between the two feral mutants but instead there is a mad dash through the years during the Watchmen inspired opening credits. Seeing the extras and scale of these war scenes in photos and snippets shows that an awful lot of the budget went into these scenes but they are gone within the first few minutes, yet they have the most realistic feel compared to the rest of the film. Almost as if they blew the cash early on and then went “oops, we better reel it in a bit”.

This leads to one of the main problems with the film. It all feels studio bound. Even with scenes that are outside it all feels like a set. Plus some dodgy green screen (the bits with Logan and Silver Fox in the van) and CG effects (the claws in the bathroom scene, and the de-aging of a character at the end) really pull you out of the movie. The recent leaking of the film onto the internet a few weeks ago was said to just be a workprint copy with unfinished effects. If that was the case they should have spent a little longer on them.

As with the dash through the years at the start of the film we are rushed through pretty much everything else. We never really get a chance to savour the moment and wallow in our comic book memories. The most time in one place is up in the Canadian Rockies where Logan spends his time with Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins).

After the credits Wolvie and Sabretooth are inducted into the Weapon X program by Stryker (Danny Huston – who uses the same speech pattern as Brian Cox which adds a nice bit of continuity), then we cut to them on a plane with Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), Bolt (Dominic Monaghan), Wraith (Will.i.am), Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), and Frederick J Dukes (Kevin Durand). Unlike the film I’ll spend a bit more time talking about the pack of Mercs. There is some good banter between them and the mission we see gives them all a chance to shine. All are good although Agent Zero’s actions, along with the later Gambit scenes, have some shoddy wire-work which again pulls you out of the film. Durand and Monaghan do a little but not a lot.

It is Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson who truly shines. He basically does the same schtick he did in Van Wilder and Blade Trinity, but he does it so well and it is ramped all the way up to 11 in this film. He is the best thing in the early scenes and it is a shame we only get to see him and, to a lesser extent, the rest for such a short amount of time. It would have been great to see them on a couple more missions to get a feel for them working as a team.

It is this rushing through the film that makes me feel the studio had more to say on the matter than the director, Gavin Hood. The whole film could have done with being another 20 or 30 minutes longer.

However, this is a Wolverine film and Hugh Jackman is great in the role. He’s been doing it for a few years now so he is very comfortable in the skin of Logan. The weird thing is that he doesn’t seem to have aged a day since he first appeared in X-Men back in 2000. Hugh is funny, scary, angry and confused at various points of the film and he acts his socks off. There are a few points in the film where you think he is going to pop a blood vessel as he is so worked up. The one fault with him though is that we once again, never really get to see him go fully berserk and become the scary beast he can be in the comic. I thought we would see this in his escape from the Weapon X compound, but he gets out of the tank (fully naked to the delight of my Wife) kills a couple of guards and is then out and away. I would have liked this to last a little longer and have us follow a few guards or something getting picked off from the shadows. The point I’m getting at is that they never really make Wolverine scary. I know that they are aiming for a younger market, but a few scenes to show just how scary it would be to face him or be to know he is hunting you would have been great.

Apart from Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool the other big name Mutant in the film is Gambit (Taylor Kitsch). He is okay, but I never really felt he was as cool as the character could sometimes be in the comic and some of the card effects were just not up to scratch. Just before he sits down with Gambit there is a pleasing nod to the comic book cliche of the heroes fighting first before teaming up and those kind of things really float my boat. There are a few others throughout the film – Holding a loved one while screaming “Noooooo!!!” to the heavens and calling people “Old Friend”. If you are a long time comic book reader then you’ll know what I am getting at and I felt they really added to the whole comic bookiness of the whole thing. I also liked the little nod to Superman with the Ma and Pa Kent types helping Logan.

The final showdown on the Island was good, although I kept saying “Where are all the guards” and it was nice to see lots of familiat Mutants as kids. The final showdown with Deadpool, Logan and Sabretooth doing his best impression of the Millenium Falcon at the end of A New Hope is pretty good, but very short. I still can’t see how they will take the Deadpool from this film and marry it with the Deadpool from the comic if they decide to make a spin-off from the spin-off. I would have loved for the proper Deadpool to have been the one they were fighting with lots of chances for Ryan Reynolds to do his funny dialogue thing he does so well.

Reading back through this it does sound as if I did not like the film. It’s not a Dark Knight or Iron Man, but I really did enjoy it. Like many of these kind of films you can pull them apart if you look too closely at it, but if you enjoy comic book movies then just sit back and let Hugh do his thing. Well worth seeing on the big screen. Don’t forget to wait through all of the credits for the last little bit – I got the Japan ending (more news on the different endings here). I give it 7 out of 10 and my Wife would give it 8 as she said she would give Hugh Jackman one……Hold on a minute…

Have you seen the film? What did you think of it? What post end credit ending did you get?

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine – TV Spot – Choice

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine TV Spot – Now with added Professor Xavier voice over

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