Is there going to be a superhero movie where the hero DOESN’T start out all beardy and disheveled at the beginning of the trailer? If so, it won’t be Wolverine in The Wolverine, who’s already kind of beardy and disheveled to begin with, but still manages to start this new trailer EVEN MORE BEARDY AND DISHEVELEDER. GET A JOB, WOLVERINE! THE BUMS LOST!

“Go away, I have at least 15 more minutes of pretending not to be interested in fighting.”

You wonder if they do that in superhero movies hoping that it’ll somehow even out when the guy has to run around in tights later. But not Wolverine, he doesn’t do gay stuff like spandex tights. He wears leather and rides a motorcycle and chomps a big penis-shaped cigar because he’s super tough. GRRR, FOOTBALL!

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The movie that’s currently being marketed as TOM CRUISE: MIDGET SUPERSPY is actually a pretty clever pulp crime story from the writer of The Usual Suspects with Werner Herzog playing a bad guy. Oh, did you not know that? It’s probably because Paramount thinks you’re eight, and the movie you saw being advertised was TOM CRUISE, 50-YEAR-OLD HARDASS, BEATS PEOPLE UP BECAUSE THE MILITARY! And that’s best-case scenario, assuming you even got past EASY GAY JOKE: THE FILM.

Get it? The title sounds naughty.

“Jack Reacher” is not a title. Jack Reacher is the franchise the studio wants to build, Paramount’s marketing department like a badly written character spouting his motivations out loud instead of dialog. Raiders of the Lost Ark, First Blood, shit, even The Bourne Identity – those were titles, people calling them “Rambo” came later. More than just crappy branding and presumptuous marketing, “Jack Reacher” is symptomatic of a mindset stuck in the days when you could just put a big star like Tom Cruise’s name above the title and every Joe Sixpack and Charla Cheesesnack would rush to the multiplex from all around to throw money at you while it snowed cocaine. Only it’s not 1985 anymore. You actually have to sell what you’ve got. And what you’ve got ain’t James Bond: Musclecar Edition. And thank God. The world needs another invincible secret agent franchise like Tom Cruise needs extra large muscle tees.

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After the jump, it’s the new, full-length trailer for Jack Reacher, directed by badass Usual Suspects screenwriter Chris McQuarrie (his first since the underrated Way of the Gun) and starring Tom Cruise. The most interesting thing about it is that Werner Herzog plays the villain, something he was born to do (“Za stoopeedity uff za common cheecken eez overwhalemink”). The least interesting thing about it is… well, pretty much everything else. I love McQuarrie (even though he most recently wrote The Tourist and Valkyrie) and I know Jack Reacher is something of a beloved pulp novel hero, but honestly, how many more badass military guys on the run from the government do we need? BE CAREFUL, TEAM, THIS MAN IS DANGEROUS. Aren’t we like six Bourne movies deep by now? And if there’s going to be a protagonist who talks sh*t to bad guys over the phone, I’d just as soon it be Liam Neeson or Mel Gibson. Tom Cruise isn’t really the type of guy who intimidates you by being some gruff, ex-military hardass. If anything, he’s the type of guy who strongarms you into some kind of painfully-direct timeshare presentation with his uncomfortable sincerity. “Fine, fine, I’ll take a free personality test, Tom, just stop looking at me like that, Jesus.”

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Werner Herzog is one our favorite characters around these parts, so it only follows that someone would want to put that character in a movie. Paramount has announced that Herzog will play the villain in One Shot, written and directed by Chris McQuarrie (Usual Suspects, Valkyrie), based on the book series by Lee Child. I hope he’s only doing this to finance a documentary about blind pygmies of the Serengeti, who create beautiful poetry and then fight to the death with yak bones.

The book series by Lee Child follows Jack Reacher, a former military policeman turned drifter. In “One Shot,” Reacher investigates the case of a sniper accused of murdering five people before being captured.
Herzog will play The Zec, an ex-prisoner of war who arranges and stages the killing and is the head of the conspiracy. “One Shot” is the first major acting role for the German auteur, aside from cameos and an occasional voice-over work on “The Simpsons.”

Said Herzog on why he was interested in working with Tom Cruise, “I haff been eenterested een za giggling dwarf ever seence I shoot ‘Even Dwarf Started Schmall’ een 1970, about za laughing dwarf oo takeower za zoo oont crucify za monkey. I see za parallel seetoation viss Tom Cruise, ollyvood, oont Scientologist. Oont ven I look eento za eyes uff za scientologeest, I see nuzzink. Zee abyss. Za cold eendifference uff nature. Vair some people see za human soul, I see styleests, publiceests, oont Schtarbucks fockeeng coffeez. Behind za eyes ist nuzzinkness, oont it is poetry. Eez beautiful.”

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Did you enjoy X-Men:First Class?  Ha! Fox tricked you! Their fluke enjoyable movie was all just a ruse to make another unwanted sequel to a rightfully forgotten franchise! Ever since Darren Aronofsky pretended to want to direct it for a few months and then went out for a pack of cigs and never came back, Wolverine 2 has been looking for a new daddy.  Now it seems they’ve found it in the form of James Mangold, whose filmography includes some solid flicks like 3:10 to Yuma and Copland, some overrated mehs like Girl Interrupted and Walk the Line, and some stinkers like Kate & Leopold and (*gulp*) Knight and Day. Deadline reports that Mangold is the first choice of both Hugh Jackman** (who apparently holds no grudges about Kate & Leopold) and 20th Century Fox.  So I guess you could say Hugh Jackman is digging for Man Gold.

Negotiations are about to get underway, but I’m told that Mangold will take the helming job on the sequel to the X-Men spinoff film, a post that became vacant when Darren Aronofsky dropped out of the film in March. I’d heard that Mangold was on a very short list coming into this week, along with Warrior director Gavin O’Connor and Brooklyn’s Finest helmer Antoine Fuqua. I’ve heard that Fox will look to start principal photography in the fall. Scripted by Christopher McQuarrie, The Wolverine takes place mostly in Japan. [Deadline]

With James Mangold directing Christopher McQuarrie, there’s a chance we could get Usual Suspects meets 3:10 to Yuma, but also a chance we get The Tourist meets Knight and Day.  Too early to tell, really.  But I’ll say this, I’m already off to a great start on my X-Men-themed gay porn parody, MAN GOLD: JackMan vs. Assbender.

**Does six-foot Hugh Jackman playing a superhero who’s supposed to be short cancel out elfin Tom Cruise playing a guy who’s supposed to be 6’5″?  Discuss.