ROTTEN TOMATOES: Gavin Hood Suggests A Philosophical, Operatic Wolverine

Gavin Hood Suggests A Philosophical, Operatic Wolverine

The 2009 existential X-Men spin-off starts filming next month.

by Fred Topel | September 30, 2007

Gavin Hood devoted a few minutes of time at a Rendition press day to answer questions about the upcoming project on everybody's mind: Wolverine. Even the director of Tsotsi could joke about why he took on the big studio comic book project.

"I'll give you two answers really quickly," he began. "One is called a college fund for my twins. That's what you're going to say so why don't we say it? You know, it's not often that a script like Rendition comes across your desk. We think that scripts are just out there and they're not."

Joking aside, to spend a year or more on the project, Hood still had to find a way to care about it artistically. "I'll tell you why I love Wolverine. The truth is, I didn't at first. When Wolverine was offered to me, I went, 'Well, I'm the wrong guy for this.' And then I spoke with Hugh Jackman and the truth is that what's great about the Wolverine character, he's really a character who suffers from a great deal of existential angst."

Like the X-Men films with their underlying message about prejudice, Hood's Wolverine will have more to it than berserker action. "What I do love about the Wolverine character is that there is within that character a great deal of disconnection from who he really is and what it means to be human. So what we're really getting a chance to do is do opera. We're taking human emotion and in the way that you would have Zeus throwing thunder bolts, it's [three claws.]"

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in X-Men

The script by David Benioff is expected to delve into Wolverine's origins and involvement with the Weapon-X program and a love interest, with possible appearances by Victor Creed (AKA Sabretooth), William Stryker, The Blob and John Wraith.

Visual effects will be cool too, especially considering that many anticipate Wolverine will have a budget upwards of $100 million. "Well, it's another reason to do it because to work in a visual way, my first film world was still photography and I love the visuals," Hood said. "Yes, to work at a level of heightened visual effects is going to be an amazing experience."

Production on Wolverine is set to begin at the end of November at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia, where producer-star Jackman is also shooting Baz Luhrmann's WWII epic, Australia. Twentieth Century Fox has set a 2009 release.

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(1-20 of 43 posts) | Reply

TheBlackGuy writes:
on Sep 29 2007 09:31 PM

Sounds cool. An existentialist Wolverine movie, how about that?

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kungfu_sage writes:
on Sep 29 2007 09:53 PM

when I hear the people talking about this movie who are actually working on it, it always sounds like they are truly excited about it, from Jackman to the other producers and this director, which I think makes it possible for this to turn out to be a really fantastic movie.

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Metafact writes:
on Sep 29 2007 10:02 PM

Well, when you think about it, what he's saying about Wolverine is basically true for almost all superheroes.

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ffamilyguy writes:
on Sep 29 2007 11:20 PM

I just hope that they still involve the whole mutant existence. If they just did a story on Wolverine who happened to run into, say Sabertooth, then that would be gay. To forget about the whole mutant existence would be pointless!

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eastern2western writes:
on Sep 29 2007 11:21 PM

Jackman is betting the farm on wolverine because all of his movies are losers except the xmen ones.

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Ruckas356 writes:
on Sep 29 2007 11:40 PM

peter jackson would would be amazing for this!!!! Imagine if he did it!!! The story behind wolverine is the best of any comic. Wolverine is really over a hundred years old. He even was a samurai in japan. I mean there is sooooo many great story lines within one character!!! This director better do it justice!!!

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arendr writes:
on Sep 29 2007 11:56 PM

This actually makes me interested in this project now. But I see a lot of disappointed other people if it is this way.

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aknddon3 writes:
on Sep 30 2007 12:58 AM

Eastern have you seen the Prestige? That was an amazing movie. Never talk again.

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Surrealist5 writes:
on Sep 30 2007 01:35 AM

could be interesting.

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Thundaar writes:
on Sep 30 2007 02:09 AM

Again with the inner angst...

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bigbrother writes:
on Sep 30 2007 04:20 AM

Decent movie yes, but was it a financial success? Also for me it was one of Nolan's worst efforts. I know saying the worst Christopher Nolan movie is like saying the slowest jet, but...

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Vega-Star writes:
on Sep 30 2007 06:06 AM

I actually thought the fountain was pretty good too eastern. he acted well in that one. but i do like wolverine, he's definitely one of the more complicated heroes because essentially he's an anti-hero.

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eastern2western writes:
on Sep 30 2007 07:47 AM

Let me rephrase my words. All of his movies are financial losers except for his x-men films.

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Pleasuretown writes:
on Sep 30 2007 07:48 AM

At least Gavin Hood has some kind of vision for Wolverine. It's not just being slapped together like X-Men 3 or any Fantastic Four. I'm pretty excited to see how it works out. Hopefully there's a good balance of Action and Emotion.

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bigteddyt writes:
on Sep 30 2007 07:59 AM

good call. x3 was the worst. i hate brett ratner.... we'll have to wait and see rendition. i think this director has a lot of promise. the guy did win an oscar. and plus, i love that jackman is giving due homage to the character that made him a star. he's already avoided the typecast by doing "financial losers" but he's doing what he wants and wolverine has let him do so. jackamn is a fine actor and has touched each section in the genre spectrum.

PS i'm so glad sabretooth is back (well, appearing) in this movie. my only complaint about x2 was that he wasn't there... he's freaking sabretooth, there's no way he died in the forst one.

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Uradik Smoke writes:
on Sep 30 2007 09:10 AM

Marvel needs to capitalize on is major characters and many would argue Wolverine to be one of its more popular heros . Now that Spiderman is on shakey terms with the mediocre 3rd film and no real direstion for the next film Marvel needs a couple "Major" characters to capitalize on . Iron Man and Wolverine could be those type of characters if the movies are done well ...

Heres to hoping that a solid director that has some major talent and major vision can make a origins story for Wolverine that will hit the same kind of way that Nolans Batman has . Nolan was a respected director that didnt have high interest in comic book movies but after learning about the character and the dark side of the stories agreed to do the movie and it turned out amazing , Hood has a similar situation and I hop he can nail Wolverine at his core ...

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gojirazilla writes:
on Sep 30 2007 11:07 AM

In reply to this comment (#1157311)
you must not of seen prestige or scoop christopher nolan woody allen nuff said

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bigbrother writes:
on Sep 30 2007 11:09 AM

In reply to this comment (#1157388)
Aren't all heroes pretty much anti-heroes now? Not bagging on your comment, but seriously when was the last Superhero who wasn't troubled by a dark past or haunted by some inner turmoil? Props though because Wolverine along with the Punisher was at the vanguard of the anti-hero revolution. I don't count Batman because it wasn't until after Wolverine, Punisher and Frank Millers Daredevil that Batman really started to embrace his darker side.

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Snarebeast writes:
on Sep 30 2007 11:21 AM

I think this movie would be interesting, but I kinda wish that they would just go ahead and do X-Men 4. The way the third one ended it really seemed like there might be more to tell. But Fox is just choosing to leave it where it was, which I kind of think is a mistake simply because X3 sucked so bad.

And I thought both The Prestige and The Fountain were awesome.

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bigbrother writes:
on Sep 30 2007 11:37 AM

In the interest of debate what did you think was great about the Prestige? I thought some of the acting was top notch(Caine, Bowie and Jackman), but was also turned off by some other parts of the movie. The conclusion took way to long to reveal itself(I got there about 45 minutes before the movie did) and I thought the attempted "Christian Bales henchman is not really Christian Bale in make-up, Really he's not...Oh wait surprise he is, look how clever I am was to fool you" part was laughably bad. Also didn't think Scarlett or to a lesser extent Perabo looked totally comfortable amongst the rest of the stellar cast.

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