X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Trouble behind the Scenes

[Wolvieboy17]

Hey guys,
I work in the Australian television industry (nothing particularly high level) and I work with a guy who was a senior lighting operator on Wolverine, and he was filling me in on alot of behind the scenes dramas. Here are a few of the things he told me.

1) First of all, Fox Studios are horrible to work with. They were constantly sending in execs or reps to check up on filming, and causing delays in the shooting for pedantic silly beaurocratic BS.
2) Gavin Hood, the director, was fired for about 2 days. He got sacked, because the Fox producers thought he didn't have what it took to helm a blockbuster movie.
3) Hood was rehired, under new conditions. The conditions being that Laura Donner, the producer (the woman who is most often quoted in the press releases) arranged for her husband, Richard Donner, to 'supervise' the direction. Before you all go "Wow, Richard Donner, but he's made some good movies", he did sweet FA... He just sat in a chair, and reviewed all the footage, and would just say "yep, fine". There wasn't a single thing he changed or contributed to, and if there was, it was something insignificant and minor. Yet he still got paid a fortune just to be involved.


It looks like Fox are just a bunch of money grubbing Hollywood stereotypes. Hearing all this got me worried that perhaps we might be in for bad news, considering it doesn't seem like that many people give a rats about making a decent Wolverine movie, and it explains why Gavin Hood has been relatively quiet, with Hugh Jackman doing most of the publicity.

Hopefully the fact that Hood stayed on as director means there could be something good about the movie. The fact that they were going to fire him makes me thing he wasn't as easy to control, like that piss weak Bret Ratner. What do you guys reckon?

 

[TNC9852002]

1.) I don't see anything wrong with that. Sounds pretty standard.
2.) Well, you don't give much to work with on that. Maybe there was actually truth to it, who knows? When was he supposedly "sacked"?
3.) Well, Richard Donner does have more experience and history with these sorts of films. He may not have contributed much, but on the executive perspective, it may have given them more piece of mind.

Now, someone else may take something completely different from these rumors/allegations/speculations...etc.

I just think that people should take it a little easier on the ups and downs of the movie production business, because unless you're actually there, making it all happen, you're always going exaggerate or throw in your own sense of how things work (or will work) based on your own pre-conceived or existing notions or opinions.

Are there any more fascinating in-depth details that your senior lighting editor can give on any of this stuff?

-TNC

 

[Peter McCabe]

regardless of all the drama between hood and fox, and the inclusion of Donner in all this I have made the following conclusion about the movie:

it looks good.

i've seen two fantastic trailers, I've seen about a hundred set photos I loved and I have great confidence in jackman as a producer.

i dont see this movie failing, and from the looks of the trailers alone, its already won.

the wolverine/sabretooth sibling rivalry and the casting of liev schreiber as creed and danny huston as stryker is the stuff i never dreamed would happen years ago.

the howlett origin, the wars, creed and logan as mercenaries in nam, the deal with the devil to get revenge...

it looks really good.

 

[danoyse]

The behind-the-scenes drama, including this issue, has already been discussed several times in here (for the most recent discussion, check out the thread about re-shoots in Canada).

Closing.