(I don’t remember why I made this Photoshop)

This week brought some news about Wolverine 2, coming ironically from Roger Friedman, the slug-person who once got fired for admitting he watched a pirated copy of Wolverine (he also once wrote that Matt LeBlanc had “literally disappeared” and was still allowed to show up for work the next day, but I digress).  Aaaaanyway, Friedman reports that the sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, will begin filming in Japan in January, from a script by Usual Suspects writer Chris McQuarrie.  Wha??  The trained seals at Fox hired someone qualified?  Oh well, I guess it’s true what they say about even a blind squirrel busting a nut.  I think that’s how it goes.

No director has been signed. And the script is a little different than originally thought. Based on a story cycle by Frank Miller and Chris Claremont, Wolverine’s adventures in martial arts will be a love story featuring a Japanese actress, I am told. “It’s a beautiful story,” says a source, “and will be very different than the first film.”
In addition to “Wolverine in Japan,” don’t worry. There are plenty of X-Men movies on the drawing boards. The next one [X-Men First Class] will bring back director Bryan Singer, who made the first two films. [via Friedman's column]

So Chris McQuarrie and Bryan Singer for Wolverine and X-Men… but also Fox?  I don’t know how to feel about that.  It’s like finding out you’re having steak for dinner, but your retarded brother who plays with his wiener all day is going to cook it.

(picture came from here, BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT CLICK THAT {highly NSFW} LINK)

Variety today has an article on the candidates for Tom Cruise’s next project (Len Wiseman’s Motorcade, The Tourist, or James Mangold’s Wichita), and more interestingly, a look at the Tom-Cruise-script-doctoring industry.  That is, the writers who get paid to tailor scripts to Cruise’s (*cough*) skills.

While screenwriters all over town have been taking haircuts on every deal [Editor's Note: I think that means they've been getting less], the script doctors in the Cruise derby [why are there doctors in a derby??] have been making as much as $250,000 a week, for two to six weeks, as they hone projects with notes from Cruise. Those writers include Scott Frank, who has been revising the action comedy “Wichita” for Cruise to play an action hero; Richard Curtis, who beefed up “Lost for Words”; and Paul Attanasio, who is now rewriting the rewrite that “Matarese Circle” director Cronenberg delivered. Meanwhile, Billy Ray continues to hone “Motorcade” with notes from Cruise. Christopher McQuarrie is doing the same on “The Tourist,” which the writer is also producing. (Ray and McQuarrie are not technically script doctors because they’ve been writing these projects for months.) [Variety]

Billy Ray reports that he’s been having trouble incorporating Cruise’s last few notes: “Your hair looks nice today.”  “I like your scarf, where’d you get it?” and “Do you like me? Check yes or no.”  Elsewhere, a rival studio is considering going forward with an undoctored script and casting another lead, a controversial strategy they call “acting.”

^{Valkyrie: A serious review}

Valkyrie (watch the trailer) is beautifully shot by Bryan Singer and full of solid acting all around (except for Tom Cruise, who isn’t horrible but is still Tom Cruise), but it never comes close to solving that one little problem.  You know, the whole protagonist-getting-executed-by-Nazis-at-the-end thing.

The film tells the story of Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg, the man who set the bomb in the final attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1944.  We open a year earlier on the North African front, where Stauffenberg tries to convince a general to defy Hitler’s orders and abandon a doomed campaign.  Just as he succeeds, Allied fighters strafe their camp, killing the general and blowing up the Jeep in which Stauffenberg sits.  Singer directs the battle scene brilliantly, striking that perfect balance between realism and actually being able to see what the f-ck’s going on that’s so rare nowadays.  Sadly, the action only lasts a few minutes.

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As much as I like to make fun of Tom Cruise for being the leader of a retard cult who’s been “acting” for almost 30 years yet can’t even do a British accent, Valkyrie does still come from Bryan Singer and Chris McQuarrie, and they’re two of the best at what they do.

After about a billion delays, Valkyrie is finally opening December 26th, and UA has just released the final trailer.  Cruise plays Klaus Von Stauffenberg, a guy who tried to kill Hitler.  He’s a hero in Germany because he lets Germans say, “See?  We weren’t all bad, there was that one guy!”  Then you ask what happened to him and they get all quiet, “Well, uh, well you see, um, what happened was…”  Sorry?  You trailed off a little there.  “Yeah.  We, uh, executed him by firing squad.  …Oh, and uh, after we buried him? Hehe, this is a funny story… We, um, well, we dug up his body, took off his medals, and had him cremated.  …That dude was f-ckin cool though.”

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After the jump, I’ve got the new, full-length trailer for Valkyrie.  That’s the one from Bryan Singer and Chris McQuarrie, the same director/writer pair behind The Usual Suspects, and which stars Tom Cruise as Klaus von Stauffenberg, the guy who tried to kill Hitler.  It opens December 26th.

You may notice Cruise is the only one speaking with an American accent.  The story’s set in Germany, so as far as realism’s concerned, it doesn’t matter what accent they use. But would it have been so hard for all the actors to be on the same page?  And if you’re a guy like Tom Cruise who always gets bashed for being a bad actor, wouldn’t you want to make it look like you’re at least trying?  The only thing about him that ever changes is his costume and makeup.  It’s like he showed up to the party dressed like a pirate but refuses to do the voice.  F-ck you, bro, you’re no fun.
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