20th Century Fox has had unusual luck at the box office in 2011 — in a generally down year for film they managed to successfully revive two moribund franchises with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and X-Men: First Class. Both these movies will be receiving sequels (of course) and the word from Fox CEO Tom Rothman is that they’re looking to hire back Rupert Wyatt (director of Planet of the Apes) and Matthew Vaughn (director of X-men).
Going back to the same directors for the sequels is a nice gesture and all, but let’s face it, neither “Rise” nor “X-men” were particularly great movies, and what success they had didn’t have much to do with their directors. What made Rise of the Planet of the Apes watchable was the top-notch effects work by Weta Digital, and X-men was buoyed along by better-than-it-needed-to-be acting by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender (also Kevin Bacon playing hilariously against type as a Nazi supervillain). Getting the directors back is all fine and good for the sake of consistency, but Weta Digital, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are who they really need to be re-hire.
Oh, and fire James Franco. Please.
via ComingSoon
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Gotta disagree with you on “Rise”, Birch. I think Wyatt did a superb job making Franco’s character sympathetic and a key driver of the action. Probably the best action movie of the year.
I thought James Franco was maybe the least convincing scientist ever and the overall look of the movie was kind of so-so.
That said, when the main Ape screamed “NO!” for the first time — well yeah, I was pretty much sold on the movie from then on. Also a gorilla attacked a helicopter.
But really, pretty much anyone with Weta Digital behind them and a script that had the line “Gorilla jumps on helicopter” somewhere in it was going to end up making a pretty entertaining movie. You didn’t need Spielberg for this one.