First Avenger Directed by Joe Johnston

[FaT_tONle]

Johnston and LL were both suspect... as was Favs to be fair. Branagh was a decent name that at least had a solid body of work that was in line with something like Thor, and his past films have earned high critical praise. Johnston has not received the same level of praise, albeit he directed much bigger projects. LL is pretty much an action junky, probably driven by his ADD. The COTT trailer does not stick with an action scene for more than .5 seconds. Say what you want about Marvel editing and chopping TIH, the redundancy and brainless action probably grew thin on the general audience while watching that film. If the character development is not there for a 1:50 minute film... maybe it just wasn't ever there to begin with. I get that 2:30 hours allows you to flesh out everything a lot more, but not every film is that long, good or bad. Neither Cap nor Thor should require the same amount of action as Hulk so if it's not there, don't blame Marvel for cutting it up. If Johnston doesn't come through here, it ain't gonna be pretty on here to say the least. Maybe not post X-3, SM3 fanboy reaction bad, but bad nonetheless.

 

[Artistsean]

So, has anyone seen Wolfman? And based on that movie, and his other movies, what do you think about him directing Captain America.

 

[louiebling$]

I liked Wolfman... it was a fun film.He paid tribute to the original while still bringing something fresh to a new audience.

 

[Triad]

Probably taking the wife to see it this weekend. Can't wait!
Based on JJ's prior films, (I recently had my own little JJ film festival, minus JP3) I'm excited that FA:CA will be epic!

 

[Brian Braddock]

How can you be sure his cut was any better? After all, you have to be curious as to why the studio didn't like what Johnston did no? Perhaps the film was at the point of no return when his cut was chopped and what we saw in the cinema was simply damage control.

What are the main constant complaints throughout most of the Wolfman reviews? The editing and lack of character development, right?

Well, we know that Johnson was not responsible for the final cut of the movie and we know that he's gone on record to say that 17 minutes of character development was cut from the movie.

You're wondering why a studio would do this? Well, it's pure conjecture at this point. You say it was damage control but I say that it wouldnt be the 1st time a movie studio has sacrificed characterisation and pacing for a shorter run time - Fox have been doing it for years simply to get more bums on seats in the cinema and give them a better £££ return.

Whats to say the suits at Universal didnt think the same? I mean, they dicked around with so many parts of the production - let's not forget that Johnson was brought in at the last minute to helm the project after Mark Romaneck jumped ship citing 'creative differences' with the studio.

I happen to think you could at least give Jonhson a break and wait to see if a 'director's cut' ever makes the light of day; then if you still feel that the movie didnt pass muster, you can at least say that you've given the guy a fair crack of the whip - although considering that you obviously dont like Johnson as a director, I think the chances of that happening are pretty slim.

I'm sure there are countless directors who have depicted the time period of WWII perfectly, directors that also have strong filmographies too. So why go with what is seemingly a gamble on a guy who has produced more bad than good?

Now that's what I call a subjective opinion. Surely a protoge of the beard cant be all bad? Anyways, who's to say Marvel share the same viewpoint as you do? The fact that they've hired him suggests that they dont.

Sure, Johnson's not the only guy to have directed a movie set during WW2 - but could it be that Marvel simply picked him because he once helmed a movie that was possibly the closest in tone and pace to what they want for Cap?

The ideas not as outlandish as it's sounds.

 

[TheFuture]

You're wondering why a studio would do this? Well, it's pure conjecture at this point. You say it was damage control but I say that it wouldnt be the 1st time a movie studio has sacrificed characterisation and pacing for a shorter run time - Fox have been doing it for years simply to get more bums on seats in the cinema and give them a better £££ return.

Whats to say the suits at Universal didnt think the same? I mean, they dicked around with so many parts of the production - let's not forget that Johnson was brought in at the last minute to helm the project after Mark Romaneck jumped ship citing 'creative differences' with the studio.

In my opinion bad reviews from influential enough sources can lead to bombs at the box office (not including kids movies). Why would the studio randomly sacrifice something that would make the film awful simply because they want a shorter run time? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me from a business point of view. I mean why shoot yourself in the foot like that?

I happen to think you could at least give Jonhson a break and wait to see if a 'director's cut' ever makes the light of day; then if you still feel that the movie didnt pass muster, you can at least say that you've given the guy a fair crack of the whip - although considering that you obviously dont like Johnson as a director, I think the chances of that happening are pretty slim.

Maybe I am being harsh in regards to the Wolfman but as you said I don't like him as a director. I don't believe I am being biased, I will call a spade a spade and if Johnston produces a quality Captain America film, I will have no hesitation in praising him.

Now that's what I call a subjective opinion. Surely a protoge of the beard cant be all bad? Anyways, who's to say Marvel share the same viewpoint as you do? The fact that they've hired him suggests that they dont.

Sure, Johnson's not the only guy to have directed a movie set during WW2 - but could it be that Marvel simply picked him because he once helmed a movie that was possibly the closest in tone and pace to what they want for Cap?

The ideas not as outlandish as it's sounds.

I don't know who the beard is.

If Marvel will hire someone based on one film that the feel is a mirror image of what they want for Captain America then fair enough, I hope for all our sakes it works out.

 

[Rage]

I saw the Wolfman last night and was very disappointed in the movie. While I thought that the look and the mood/atmosphere of the film was good. I thought that the FX were poor and the story was horrible!! While JJ can't be blamed for the story... he can be blamed for the quality of the FX. That being said, the mood/tone/atmophere/look of the picture was pretty good. The acting was wooden and lifeless though.

While I enjoyed some of his other movies... this one was not very good!

I still think that he can do a decent Cap movie (given the fact that he will be the director of note from the start)

 

[Webhead2006]

yea i dont care for reviews to movies my self, i rather go to the movie and like or not like it after i seen it. I plan to see the film soon. Sure there is films of his i like and films of his i dont like. But thats all different from cap. Plus he will have marvel studios along with him.

 

[captaintass]

Wolfman, the good and the bad.

Good: Sets, atmosphere, mood, cinemetography, SFX.

Bad: The action scenes. They just weren't exciting at all. Very pedestrian.

What does this mean for CA? IMO it means it will look great and set the right tone but will not snap your head back with awesomeness when the story calls for intense action. It will be the cinematic equivalent of a 2009 Mustang with a V6 in it.

Oh, and if he rapes Cap's costume (no headwings, no cuffed boots, helmet) it will be a 1995 Mazda MX3 with a 4-cylinder engine.

 

[Deaths Head II]

If the action scenes are lackluster, I won't cry too hard. You can't even tell what's going on in most of Nolan's action scenes but his Batman films are among my favorite.

 

[Webhead2006]

well we dont know what type of action shots will be called for in the cap movie. So if you didnt like what he did with wolfman it could be completely different action. Plus he probably has a few different folks he is working with on cap compared to wolfman.

 

[Triad]

I was gonna say the same thing Webhead. He might have a different action choreographer for Cap....plus Marvel probably has final say, so if it lacks excitement, they probably can have it juiced up before the final cut. No worries folks.

 

[Rage]

I worry about his ability to get a good performance out his actors. The leads in Wolfman (both Oscar Calibre actors) were horrible and wooden. If he can't get a decent performance from them... how is he going to get a decent performance from an unknown?

On an upside, maybe we'll get Viggo as the Red Skull since they have worked together before (fingers crossed)

 

[Webhead2006]

well like above poster said marvel and kevin f will have final say in things and if they dont like how things are going i am sure they will fix any of the issues.

 

[hame4479]

If there is one driving force behind my belief that Johnston will make a great period piece superhero film its The Rocketeer guys. That film has every element that a great cap would need, good bombastic Nazis, fun action, a classic tone and all around feel, and great classic imagery. That scene where the Rocketeer is getting ready to blast off after that blimp with the spotlights flowing in the background and that American flag is absolutely classic. Input Cap and you don't get much better. "Go get em kid".

 

[hame4479]

Plus I thought the action in the wolfman was pretty solid. It sold me on a vicious werewolf that moves at ridiculous speeds and is utterly animalistic and thats not easy when u have a guy in bulky prosthetics.

 

[hame4479]

I worry about his ability to get a good performance out his actors. The leads in Wolfman (both Oscar Calibre actors) were horrible and wooden. If he can't get a decent performance from them... how is he going to get a decent performance from an unknown?

On an upside, maybe we'll get Viggo as the Red Skull since they have worked together before (fingers crossed)

That script was bland and horrid, and the production extremely troubled. I'd look at his other films instead. October Sky was absolutely brilliant.

 

[DACrowe]

So, has anyone seen Wolfman? And based on that movie, and his other movies, what do you think about him directing Captain America.

I saw Wolfman a few days ago and have been dissecting it in the thread about that the last few days. Which does lead me to worry about Captain America.

I actually enjoyed The Wolfman remake. But mostly because of the style, look and feeling of the movie. The werewolf make-up looked awesome, the cinematography, sets and costumes were breathtaking and the scenes where the Wolfman goes on rampages (not counting an unnamed scene near the end) left me grinning.

But the movie was emotionally very muted and postured. It was designed to look nice, but Johnston failed to get us invested in the characters and it felt like a later Merchant-Ivory film (after they moved a long way from Room with a View).

Now what does this mean for Captain America? Well I'm a bit worried. To be fair the rushed tone may have hurt the depth of Wolfman, as the studio chopped up the final cut of that film. But when I look at all of his movies in the last decade they all have had similar problems. Jurassic Park III? Hidalgo? And now the Wolfman. While the latter I think was better than the first two, but they all just felt very stilted. Each was visually impressive, but none of them really engaged the audience enough to fully satisfy or impress completely.


I think Joe Johnston in the late '80s and '90s was a real up-and-comer for commercial genre films. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids took a mess of a production and made a real crowd pleaser. The Rocketeer is an underrated gem of a family adventure film that really sticks with you. Jumungi was okay and certainly entertaining. October Sky was a really good movie.


I mean there is a chance that Captain America will end up closer to Rocketeer and October Sky. But his latest work and especially his last major blockbuster effort, Jurassic Park III, gives me pause. He could deliver something visually quite cool. But if you don't care about the characters it will just be another Incredible Hulk. Fun. Enjoyable and Disposable.

 

[bunk]

If the script is good, I don't think there's too much to worry too much with Johnston.

 

[Deaths Head II]

If the script is good, I don't think there's too much to worry too much with Johnston.

I agree.

 

[flickchick85]

While Johnston certainly doesn't have a perfect record, I don't think The Wolfman is a good gauge on where he currently is as a filmmaker. In film school they teach you that the single most important stage of a film, where the movie really lives or dies, is in pre-production. Preparation is everything when determining how smoothly the other stages of the film will go. Johnston came on board The Wolfman only 4-weeks before production, replacing Mark Romanek at the last minute, which meant he missed out on the majority of pre-production. It's not really his movie. He was just basically a substitute on this one. Even the performances (I haven't seen the movie so I can't comment on them) could be blamed on crappy pre-production: if they were behind schedule, that could be a legitimate reason why he didn't have the time to spend with the actors to get the performances he wanted.

I'm not saying he's NOT in a creative slump (I haven't seen one of his movies in years, so I couldn't say either way); I'm just saying I don't think The Wolfman is a good movie to judge that on, due to the unusual circumstances surrounding it. Just a thought.

 

[DACrowe]

In my opinion bad reviews from influential enough sources can lead to bombs at the box office (not including kids movies). Why would the studio randomly sacrifice something that would make the film awful simply because they want a shorter run time? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me from a business point of view. I mean why shoot yourself in the foot like that?

Just to answer this. I don't know if the 17 minutes makes Wolfman better (I certainly hope so), but it is obvious why you would chop it down. First, Johnston apparently didn't have Lawrence turn into a werewolf until around an hour into the movie. You cut it down by 15 minutes or so (the bulk of the cuts were pre-transformation), boom he is now a monster killing people less than 45 minutes into the movie.

And also from a business side, if a studio thinks a film's reviews are irrelevant (and when it comes to genre films like this or especially horror), they want to get as many showings in a day as possible. The original cut of a movie like Wolfman is around 2 hours. That is average length. But if you cut the movie down to 100 minutes (which they did) you can get 1-2 more showings a day out a screen and that means 1-2 more groups of audiences who may see the movie.

This is a usual tactic to increase box office intake, especially for the first weekend. Hence why the cuts probably happened. Whether the movie is better in long form or not, I don't know.

 

[DACrowe]

While Johnston certainly doesn't have a perfect record, I don't think The Wolfman is a good gauge on where he currently is as a filmmaker. In film school they teach you that the single most important stage of a film, where the movie really lives or dies, is in pre-production. Preparation is everything when determining how smoothly the other stages of the film will go. Johnston came on board The Wolfman only 4-weeks before production, replacing Mark Romanek at the last minute, which meant he missed out on the majority of pre-production. It's not really his movie. He was just basically a substitute on this one. Even the performances (I haven't seen the movie so I can't comment on them) could be blamed on crappy pre-production: if they were behind schedule, that could be a legitimate reason why he didn't have the time to spend with the actors to get the performances he wanted.

I'm not saying he's NOT in a creative slump (I haven't seen one of his movies in years, so I couldn't say either way); I'm just saying I don't think The Wolfman is a good movie to judge that on, due to the unusual circumstances surrounding it. Just a thought.

Good point. But Wolfman was imo, his most entertaining film of the last 10 years. His other two entries, the films Hidalgo and Jurassic Park III were as equally emotionally distant and uninteresting in terms of characters as Wolfman. The troubled production may explain the hatchet job editing and acting (though I did like Del Toro, Weaving and Blunt, but they could have been better and Hopkins was a sleep).

But all three films have the same problems when it comes to characters and memorability.

 

[blinkuldhc]

One thing to remember is that Johnston will be surrounded by Marvel execs and fanboy crewpeople.... It's my hunch that Johnston will get a lot more collaborative aid on FA:CA than he will on The Wolfman.

 

[Webhead2006]

I am sure joe will do well with cap.