Slicing & Dicing it's way to a Director

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Sequel Nearing a Helmer

No your honor, I did not take any performance enhancing adamantium.

According to reports from "Deadline," News is out this week that the sequel to the commercially successful, yet critically bashed, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" has narrowed its search for a new director down to two people. Those people: Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler), and David Slade (30 Days of Night). For anyone who's a comic book fan, or heck, just a plain old Wolverine fan, we're begging for a better adaptation of the adamantium beserker's adventures compared to his last two appearances, and we need it now. So who should be the frontrunner in this race to direct Logan back to greatness? My pick, is David Slade.

This is a real vampire. Fear Him.

Though Slade lost a couple of points with me after directing the third Twilight film 'Eclipse' this summer, he is still responsible for creating one of the best vampire films in cinema "30 Days of Night." Slade was able to helm the film with a meager $30 Mil. production budget, and yet crafted one of the bloodiest and brutal vampire films to date. I know this a tough argument to win, but I will choose 30 Days of Night over any other vampire film simply because it captures the true essence of the savage creature...blood-thirsty and genocidal. And before you say anything...I still consider "Bram Stoker's Dracula" is a close second.

Hey Bub! I'll cut your liver if I don't get a good film soon

Another good reason to add Slade to the project is that he has experience in adapting comic books into movies. "30 Days of Night" was a moderately successful graphic novel series created by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. Although I have some reservations about the ending and art style of the book, I loved how Slade was able to craft a film that captured the violent images from the book, but was able to paint a unique setting containing a bleak, cold, and lifeless Alaskan backdrop. If Slade were to helm this film, I hope 20th Century Fox (the production studio for Wolverine) would consider making this an R-rated film. I know it's wishful thinking, but hey, a guy can dream. Wolverine is a beast inside a human disguise. He's practically got swords for weapons, and yet we rarely see any blood from his silver screen counterpart. I want to see the film take a violent turn for 'Wolvie' fans who just want to see the guy tear s**t up. It's almost like having Leonardo from the Ninja Turtles beat up the foot clan with the hilt of his swords... it's not believable, and it just looks foolish.

Everyone behind Wolverine looks ashamed...They should be

So why not Aronofsky? I respect his resume tremendously but I don't think he has the right approach to a film with such a deep history in comics. I know he was slated to direct the "Robocop" remake which fell through, but I feel Aronofsky's passion for a subject like this will hurt the project. He's too much of a cerebral director, and Wolverine is the type of character to slice first and ask questions later. But I wouldn't count Aronofsky out just yet, he did after all direct "The Fountain" with Hugh Jackman so I'm sure they have a good relationship with one another. Only time will tell if he's their go-to guy in the end.

Fans of the X-Man need a good Wolverine adaptation. After the atrocities of both "X-Men The Last Stand" and "X-Men Origins," our thirst for some adamantium carnage needs to be quenched soon. Don't have Wolverine cry in his movies. We want him to be like an unleashed predator. I have no problems with Hugh Jackman's portrayal of Wolvie, but we need writers to make him brutal again. He's the anti-hero of our generation and he needs to break the rules more often. No more love stories, and no more thoughtless plot points like adamantium bullets erasing his memories. Give us the Wolverine from "X-2: X-Men United" who killed off dozens of guards infiltrating the X-Mansion. Give us the Wolverine we all love and deserve. Snikt!!!

One of the most iconic comic book scenes lasts just 2 minutes in the film

This Class is Getting Crowded

X-Men: First Class Seeing too Much of a Good Thing?

As many hardcore comic book fans may know, next summer's movie line-up will be a haven for lovers of the mutant kind. With the likes of Captain America, Thor, the Spider-Man reboot, and Green Lantern, one of these anticipated titles includes the reboot of the X-Men franchise "X-Men: First Class." Directed by "Layer Cake" and "Kick-Ass" helmer Matthew Vaughn, the film will chronicle the early beginnings of Professor Xavier's friendship with Magneto, and how both would ultimately turn against each other in their growing disagreement over how to handle the relationship between humans and mutants, ultimately spawning the X-Mansion and the Brotherhood of Mutants. Anyways, the film is set to release next June and lately there's been a flurry of casting choices that really has me concerned over just what kind of shape this movie is in.

Mcavoy as Professor 'Wheels' Xavier

Today it was announced that 'Mad Men' starlet January Jones is the newest addition to the film, which is adding to an already heavy line-up of Hollywood talent. Headlining the film are James Macavoy as a young Professor Xavier, and Michael Fassbender as a young Magneto (both of which are excellent choices in my opinion). Among the rest of the big line-up of talent are Kevin Bacon as an unknown villain, Oliver Platt as a mysterious character called "Man in Black," Rose Byrne as a possible Moira McTaggert, and the list goes on and on. But just like Lebron joining the Heat with D-Wade and Chris Bosh, this film has me concerned over who will be the star in this movie. Just how many characters will audiences have to keep track of, and will each of them have their due screen time?

The dude from 300 as Magneto...nice

Another concern of mine is not just the big name casting, but the fact that the film hasn't even begun filming yet, and we're about 9 months away from its release. I'm not sure how the movie industry works, but I imagine 9 months to shoot, edit, re-shoot, and polish your film has to take a bit of time. On top of that, news broke a couple of weeks ago of director Matthew Vaughn claiming he had to scrap at least 12 pages of the film's script because an action sequence in 'First Class' involved a zero-gravity fight scene which Vaughn claims was too similar to a  scene in Christopher Nolan's "Inception" (which is truly an amazing film by the way). So some of the big questions I have is whether this film will be delayed, or will it be too rushed in its production?

Nolan makes the guy from 500 Days of Summer badass

Whatever the case may be, I have a great deal of trust in director Matthew Vaughn. He's dealt with problems like this in films before, (look into the drama to get Kick-Ass funded) and he's come out swinging for the fences and kicking the audience's ass with his awesomeness(no pun intended...who am I kidding? hells yea it is!). I'm all for adding as much amazing talent to your film as possible, but sometimes too much of a good thing can be bad and it's just hard for audiences to really connect to a character that gets 5 minutes of screen time. I mean, just look at the Ocean's Eleven franchise. Until then, as Stan Lee would say, stick around true believers!