Can this rumor be true? I'm skeptical. Sometimes, I hear stuff floating around the video store, which is after all located right down the street from both the Fox and Sony studios, and I think it's just customers rattling off about Internet BS, only to discover months later that it's 100% true. (One example is Gwen Stacy appearing as a major character in Spider-Man 3. They'd been scouring New Releases for hot young actresses for months...)
Anyway, today, an unnamed customer passed along a peculiar behind-the-scenes story from Fox. Apparently (and bear in mind, this is an unfounded rumor, for which I can find absolutely no corroborative evidence on any movie blogs or websites), a copy of Brett Ratner's upcoming FINAL installment in the X-Men trilogy has been stolen from the studios, and is headed for certain Internet piracy. As a result, this man assured me, a totally new ending will be shot for the film and kept locked away under heavy security.
Ain't It Cool has posted an update on X3 just today, about Brett Ratner apologizing to the online community for...well, for existing, basically. See, the thing is, the dork community and Brett Ratner and Fox...they're all doing this silly little dance right now. Brett's pretending that his movie doesn't suck, Fox and Marvel are pretending they gave a shit whether or not the movie sucks and the fans are pretending that they might not go see a big-budget X-Men movie in theaters even though they absolutely will. Hardcore X-Men fans will go see any big-budget movie with "X-Men" in the title. They would go see X3 even if it consisted solely of Brett Ratner reading comics in front of a blue screen for 90 minutes.
Why even bother? Why not just release a standard form in the mail alerting comic book nerds and fanboys to the existence of an upcoming film, X-Men 3, and just issue them official times to report to the theater to get it over with? Like Jury Duty.
"Please allow yourself a few moments after the screening to get over your crushing disappointment, and to finish off any last Sour Patch Kids your chubby fingers may have missed in the bottom of the carton during this shitty, barely sensible, yet oddly colorful Brett Ratner Production. We apologize for any sudden nausea or discomfort this film may have caused you, and thank you again for your enthusiastic, if mandatory, patronage. Now, hurry back to your basements and studio apartments...you're upsetting the normals."
Ratner himself, in case you were wondering, remains a clueless jackass. I guess Brett can always take comfort in the fact that, should the directorial career fall through, he could always by the understudy for that Turtle idiot on "Entourage."
"Well, it seems to be the last of the series," Ratner said of the eyebrow-raising title for the third film, "X-Men: The Last Stand," due May 26. "We wanted to make sure the audiences knew that this was a trilogy. Even though they weren't made together like 'Lord of the Rings,' this is really closure for the X-Men series. ... This is the last stand for sure."
That's usually not a good sign, when you have to let audiences know they're watching a trilogy once the third one comes out. Usually indicates the entire production has run out of steam.
"Hey, just so you guys don't get too excited, I just want to make sure you all understand that I have killed the franchise forever. Okay? Everyone got that? It's done, dead, exterminated. I fucked it up beyond all repair. Maybe, in ten or twenty years, some hot new director will come along and figure out some mystical, seemingly-impossible way to actually reinvent these characters, some innovative way to overcome the horrific, disgraceful failure of imagination I will unleash on the world this summer. I don't know. All I know is, X-Men 3 will devour your soul. I just want that to be perfectly clear. This May, I will drop my pants and squeeze out a chunky one all over your beloved childhood fantasies...Ratner Out."
i'm starting to get sick of all the internet bashing of X3....yes, ratners never directed anything decent in his life, and X2 was flawless...but, bryan singer isnt god, his superman looks god awful (horrible casting, costume, etc.)
ReplyDeletethe trailer for X3 looked great. angel and beast both looked better than i thought they would, both of them being characters i thought would translate terrible to screen.
as much as i love AICN, harry and them have an agenda. when they are excited about something or like an actor or director, they hype it up nonstop and if they dont like the actor/director/studio he bashes in completely.
case in point - Sky Captain - quite possibly a horrible movie...but cuz harry was able to hang out with the director, he hyped it nonstop.
now, im not saying thats a bad move on his part, whos to say i wouldnt do the same thing. but i love the xmen franchise and after a decent trailer, i hate to see people trying to boycott or hurt its chances for success...sorry for the rant lons...good stuff from you as usual
Lons--thanks for ruining my Friday, and possibly the following week as well. I'm one of those dorks you spoke of. Only it's not just for X-men. I'll see anything that shows any signs of having some sort of sci-fi action component to it.
ReplyDeleteI read AICN all the time, and I agree with many of Harry's reviews at a high level. In other words, I usually like what he likes, with a higher correlation than say I have with Ebert.
But I still think Harry is a pompous douche sometimes. I think he's forgotten movies are about fun, and he tends to turn some pretty trivial shit into "earth-shattering tragedy". At the end of the day, even if X3 sucks, we will still have a new Aliens movie to look forward too (intehnet rum0rs is teh m0st acuret am i rite!_)
Well, I'll have to respectfully disagree with Benson about the "X3" trailer. I'm a big fan of Part 2 (though it's not exactly flawless...), but this new installment looks like made-for-UPN version of that film. (Angel looks okay thus far...Beast, not so much).
ReplyDeleteAlso, Benson, I'm going to actually admit to really liking "Sky Captain." Yes, I know, it's thin and the actors don't always look at home in the weird animated world of Conran's creation. But the movie is fast and fun, and it looks absolutely sensational.
I do agree with you both that H. Knowles is kind of a self-aggrandizing fool who mistakes getting close to celebrities and filmmakers with appreciating cinema.