Two months ago, Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky bailed from what would have been his first foray into big budget action filmmaking. Reteaming with his Fountain star Hugh Jackman, Aronofsky was on board to deliver a gritty version of The Wolverine, the not-quite-prequel-sequel to 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Since then, the movie's been in flux, suffering the loss of the talented director and a hiccup in production due to the tsunami disaster affecting their desired shooting location of Japan. For all intents and purposes, the movie was not moving forward.
Now, thanks to Variety, we have the first news since the shake up, a short list of contenders for the director's seat. Missing are previous names like Robert Schwentke, David Slade and Duncan Jones, replaced by a few "in" directors, a few indie talents and guys who've been doing the action thing for most of their careers. A healthy mix to be sure.
Here are the eight directors currently being circled by Fox to take the reigns on their important superhero franchise:
Doug Liman: Director of Swingers, The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Jumper and Fair Game. He certainly has the knack for shooting action, but if the filmmakers want to turn The Wolverine into something more than a jumble of fight scenes like the first movie, they might be better with a performance-centric director.
Antoine Fuqua: Director of Bait, Training Day, King Arthur and Shooter. Fuqua certainly could continue the vision of a gritty Wolverine, but most of his movies' successes have depended on the talent involved, meaning he may not bring as much to the table.
Mark Romanek: Director of One Hour Photo, Never Let Me Go and a handful of music videos, from Jay-Z to Johnny Cash. Romanek is an unexpected choice, with few action-driven pieces to his name. He does have the visual eye and focus on power performance that The Wolverine could use, but he's untested in making a big budget Hollywood movie.
Jose Padilha: Director of Elite Squad, Elite Squad 2, upcoming Robocop remake. Padilha proved himself to the studios with his low-budget Portuguese-language Elite Squad action pictures, nabbing him some high-profile gigs. He might bring the right balance to The Wolverine, but he's another guy who hasn't ventured into the world of blockbuster filmmaking and may not play nice with studios (especially Fox, notorious for interference).
Justin Lin: Director of Better Luck Tomorrow, Annapolis, Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious and Fast Five. After Fast Five exploded at the box office, everyone wanted to be in the Justin Lin business, including Arnold Schwarzenegger who was planning to star in a new Terminator under the director. That's a no go, so Lin is looking elsewhere. The Wolverine is a viable option, but Lin may be too slick for his own good -- his film Better Luck Tomorrow is performance driven, but he hasn't put those skills on display much since then.
Gavin O'Connor: Director of Miracle, Pride and Glory and the upcoming Warrior. O'Connor's films are mostly harmless with a lot of heart. The little seen Pride and Glory got a lot of praise, while his next, the MMA movie Warrior looks like a repeat of Miracle with fighting. He'd probably deliver the "safest" version of The Wolverine.
James Mangold: Director of Cop Land, Girl, Interrupted, Identity, Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma and Knight and Day. Mangold is most diverse director on the list -- he's done a little of everything and always done it well. Whether he'll bring enough style to differentiate The Wolverine from the thousand other comic book movies out there is a roll of the dice, but his films always own their genre.
Gary Shore: Director of a lot of commercials. Shore's been directing commercials for a years, but a few months ago produced a short faux-trailer for Wolverine 2 that we're sure helped him land on this list. Handing the project to Shore might be like getting the Zack Snyder-directed Wolverine. Lots of style, iffy substance. Watch his short below.
Who do you think needs to direct The Wolverine? One of these guys or someone completely different?
