I don't want to write this. However, I do have... MULTIPLE CONFIRMED SOURCES that I trust. I don't want to write this because I thought after the first film that everything would be smooth sailing. That a franchise of cool was born. That competent and respectful people were in charge. That cooler heads had prevailed.
The other day, I was forwarded a bunch of Casting rumors that first appeared on 4Filmmakers.Com regarding X-MEN 2, but so far haven't been able to confirm their Scott Caan and Anthony Hopkins rumors... However, in working on those rumors... I got extremely bad news about where X-MEN 2 is headed.
Now the good news is this... It is early in the process and things can and HOPEFULLY will change.
There are two scripts for X-MEN 2 currently. One by Zak Penn and the other by David Hayter. In typical Fox - monkeys at typewriters - fashion they have these two scripts and will fold 'the best ideas' into a single script, which will then hack through the process... This brilliant tactic was used on ALIEN 3 and LETHAL WEAPON 4. It is generally the worst way to come up with a coherent narrative and the most artificial way in dealing with characters and the writer's vision for the narrative.
Both scripts are centered around the basic LEGACY storyline... In the first film... the blurb that Bryan Singer was able to go around justifying the reason a 'distinguished' filmmaker would be making a 'comic book' movie was the MALCOLM X and MARTIN LUTHER KING JR metaphor.... Well this time it is an AIDS metaphor mixed with the well known conspiracy theory that the AIDS virus was engineered to target the Gay Community.... Well in this film the Legacy Virus is targeted to take out the Mutant Community. Alright... well that isn't the bad news.
The bad news comes with the introduction of THE SENTINELS as being humans and not the big ol Robots that we fans know and love. Remember those scenes in MARVELS that Alex Ross gave us... Forget them... Nothing of the like here. All your dreams about a grand film of jaw-dropping scope and coolness... That is not the path they are on right now.
It seems that they are on the same path that they were once on with the first film... A TERRIBLE PATH that had a mushy girly man Wolverine and a dumb brute named Beast. Now I can understand making the SENTINELS humans if Roger Corman was producing... But this is not the case. I thought everyone agreed that the tone of the first film was right, that it was only the scope of the film that kept it from being as big as the film could have been. Making the Sentinels human would be like giving Rogue a dick that could cut through Adobe Mud Buildings or casting Martin Short as Wolverine. This is not a minor thing. This is a major problem.
Now I know that the instinct may be that I'm crying wolf... but folks, you didn't read the drafts of the first X-MEN that had Wolverine stitching up dollys like a grandmother...
Pretty much all that was seen on the otherside of the X-MEN release was smiles and happiness, but nobody seems to remember that nearly everyone in production didn't know whether or not the finished film was any good... Avi Arad told me he knew... but then that was on the set of SPIDER-MAN... Quite a bit after the situation.
Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail... Hopefully, they'll realize that Sentinels are giant robots that look like Jack Kirby designed them. Legacy virus is a good story, but not if you have Sentinels... and I guarantee that fans would rather see the X-MEN vs Giant Robot Sentinels than see the X-Men with boils on their face and dying of a quick acting virus.
Right now I'm working on getting a look at these scripts to nail down exactly how bad it is, but from the sources I have on this.... and from my experiences with those sources on past stories... I don't hold much if any hope for the drafts as are. But smile... ALL OF THAT CAN CHANGE!!! It did last time!
