With “The Wolverine” now defanged a bit thanks to Darren Aronofsky leaving the director’s chair and the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan where the film was supposed to shoot, Fox has put the brakes on the highly anticipated sequel which apparently boasts a strong script from Christopher McQuarrie. While Hugh Jackman and the studio are eager to right the many wrongs of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” they are wisely not rushing to get the film moving again. However, last week, intel burbled up that Fox was beginning to look at directors to take on the film with David Slade — who pretty much had the gig prior to Aronofsky’s arrival — and Duncan Jones being mentioned as contenders and it now it looks like meetings will be taking place.
“Who knows what’ll be coming up next – I have a lot of meetings and catching-up to do when I get back to LA,” Jones told IGN (via Empire) going on to confirm that one of the projects he’s meeting on is the comic franchise saying, “[Wolverine is] more interesting to me than Batman.”
It’s not a surprise that the “Source Code” director is being eyed — he’s a critical and geek favorite — but it’ll be interesting to see how seriously he entertains any offers. We spoke with the director recently and he said that while he’s flattered to be considered for these kinds of projects—he was in the running for “Man Of Steel”—he really wants to focus on his own material. “I’m also a huge admirer of the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino and those directors who have been able to build their own material and get it done on a budget where they feel they can make the films they want to make,” he said. “So ideally I would like to be in the situation where I’m writing my own scripts and making them at a budget level where I feel I can do them justice.”
That being said, if he can put together some kind of “one-for-you-one-for-me” deal that would allow him to get his city-based sci-fi pic or even “Mute” — which is now going the comic route first — off the ground, we could easily see Jones being very enticed by what would easily be his most massive production yet on any level.
But it’s early days yet, and we’re bracing ourselves for a lengthier shortlist of directors to arrive any day now.
