After exiting the director’s seat on The Wolverine due to creative control issues, director Darren Aronofsky has left a void for 20th Century Fox to fill. They need a director to helm the pic, but after what they did to Matthew Vaughn on X-Men: First Class, it’s not likely that many directors are going to want to sign on to the project. During the filming of the latest X-Men film, the studio switched up Vaughn’s crew so many times that he often didn’t know who his crew would be on any given day. There were five different cinematographers, two assistant directors etc. He was also very rushed.
Nonetheless, FOX still needs someone for the project and Variety is telling us that the list of director’s for the film is down to eight names. The list includes Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go), Jose Padilha (Elite Squad), Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), Justin Lin (Fast Five), James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma), Gavin O’Connor (Pride and Glory) and Gary Shore, who is known for television commercials.
Decent list but my vote goes to Mangold, Liman or Lin. Justin Lin is currently in a very good position to take the director’s chair as he’s just coming off of the very successful Fast Five. He also knows how to pull off big action, which is something the film would certainly be full of. Doug Liman is probably most well known for his role in the Bourne series but as a director, he hasn’t done anything successful recently.
Fair Game did well critically but wasn’t seen by many and Jumper was just a total failure. That being said, I’m a big fan of Bourne, so for that reason alone, he’d get my vote. And then we come to James Mangold, who directed one of my favorite films of all time, 3:10 To Yuma, a brilliant western that is pretty much damn near perfect. But, he does have a pretty big strike against him with his recent failure, Knight and Day.
What’s interesting is that one of my favorite directors, Duncan Jones, was recently in the running and even met with the studio. That fact that he doesn’t appear on this list though means he likely rejected the job. Shame.
Who do you want to see direct the film?