X3 - X-Men: The Last Straw

[©brad]

whateva.

anyway, the first two haven't really set up a proper arc for this one to end it all. xmen is actually one of the few franchises in which i wouldn't mind if they continued on for a while. they're so many interesting characters that they could explore more, but can't given the limited screen time (hence it becomes the wolverine/magneto show).

[JG]

i love how we treat ratner on these boards. 

brett ratner: xixax as chuck norris:  the rest of the world. 

haha, i think the funniest thing is how he says pretty much the same exact thing different ways:

I was a major fan of the cartoon. I loved the cartoon.

Well, I loved Dark Phoenix. I was just so into Dark Phoenix.

[matt35mm]

Ratner Insists X3 Will be the Last X-Men Film
... Ratner insists he's genuine.

He doesn't seem to realize that it's not up to him... perhaps his ego causes him to forget that he's just a director-for-hire, and doesn't own or control the rights to X-Men.  Ratner can insist anything he likes; Marvel and Fox will decide whether or not they want to make some more money on the film franchise.

[Kal]

Unless at the end of the movie they DO take whatever medication or experiement and they become human... with no more mutants... then its definitly over, dont you think?

[matt35mm]

Unless at the end of the movie they DO take whatever medication or experiement and they become human... with no more mutants... then its definitly over, dont you think?

That'd be a pretty fucking pussy "last stand," don't you think?

And it doesn't rule out prequels.

[MacGuffin]

Excellent DVD Extra for X-Men 3 Rumored

It'll just be a deleted scene or outtake, but this little clip sounds like a fantastic DVD extra. The rumor comes from none other than John Bruno, visual effects supervisor for X-Men: The Last Stand who recently sat down for an interview with Total Film. After sharing his thoughts about working with embattled director Brett Ratner (he was nervous at first, but found him fun to work with), Bruno shared a great story from on-set during filming. Bruno told TF about an evening of filming on the Alcatraz set which started with the basic director's read through of instructions (you know, the "this person stands here, this person walks in from this side," etc.). After Ratner got a few lines into his directions, which he had written out on two pages of paper, actor Ian McKellen interrupted him and requested permission to take over. Bruno's description of the event is as  follows: "So he took the script and read two pages of description. It was like he was standing there reading Shakespeare, it was fantastic. Here we all were, three in the morning, frozen solid and everybody was just mesmerized by Ian reading this description! It was so good, we had him do it again just for laughs." Now if that doesn't sound like something you want to see on an X-Men DVD, I don't know what would.

[Ravi]

It wouldn't be like a major studio not to milk a franchise dry.

[modage]

7-Minute X-Men Sneak Peek Now Online!
The seven-minute preview of 20th Century Fox's X-Men: The Last Stand, which aired on Fox tonight, is now online exclusively at Dell.com!

http://www.dell.com/html/us/xmen/index.html

[MacGuffin]

International Trailer

[elpablo]

[MacGuffin]

Ratner finally gets a comic franchise

Ever since he was a kid in Miami Beach, Brett Ratner has dreamed of directing a comic book franchise. So when the chance to direct "X-Men: The Last Stand" came up, he chased it hard.

Over lunch at the gusty Fox Villa in the hills high above Cannes, the 37-year-old filmmaker recalled how he balanced the urge to make his own mark on the last installment of the popular series with the need to satisfy audience expectations.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: WERE YOU ALWAYS A DIE-HARD COMIC BOOK FAN?

Brett Ratner: I grew up reading "Superman" and "Batman" and occasionally "Richie Rich." I was not an "X-Men" fan per se. I was a fan of the TV cartoon and became a fan of the "X-Men" universe. I loved it.

THR: YOU FIRST TRIED TO RE-WORK THE NEW "SUPERMAN" FRANCHISE.

Ratner: I put it out there that I wanted to do a comic book movie. When "Superman" came my way, it was a dream come true. As a kid, I was blown away by the first Tim Burton "Batman." I couldn't fathom how it was done; it was a big unbelievable visual experience for me.

THR: LOSING "SUPERMAN" MUST HAVE BEEN A REAL BLOW.

Ratner: I got upset that Bryan Singer's got "X-Men," Sam Raimi's got "Spider-Man" and they hired Chris Nolan to do "Batman." It was like, "What am I going to do? I'm not going to have any franchise." The "Superman" script by J.J. Abrams was brilliant but too expensive to make. Warners didn't want to make it with an unknown actor. Bryan managed to figure out how to do a lower-budget version of that. When Bryan left "X-Men," I wanted it so bad. I realized it was the end of a trilogy; it's not "Star Trek 8." It's truly like "The Lord of the Rings" I was going to be part of history. "X-Men" is special, it has scope, it's the biggest action movie ever, it's thought-provoking. The movie deals with friendship and when you give up on somebody you love.

THR: HOW MUCH DID YOU CONTRIBUTE TO THE SCRIPT?

Ratner: I wasn't trying to reinvent the series. I didn't change the story at all. The cure concept was brilliant. Storywise, my focus was on the emotionality and the psychological journey of the characters, who the audience and myself have to love.

THR: INCLUDING THE ONES WHO GET WIPED OUT!

Ratner: It's "X-Men." Jean Gray (Famke Janssen) gets killed in "X-Men 2" but shows up on the first day of shooting of "X-Men 3." She's like Aphrodite rising, a girl hitting puberty who is expressing herself while the men in her life are suppressing her. She's good and evil. The Dark Phoenix is the dark side of Jean Gray. I wanted the movie to be visceral, not otherworldly. In the comics, she's blowing up planets. You can do anything in a comic book. The "X-Men" movies always have an element of reality to them, they're less sci-fi movie drama.

THR: SO WHAT ACTUAL CHANGES DID YOU MAKE?

Ratner: I did change the structure tremendously. The Golden Gate Bridge sequence was in the middle of the movie. It was such a huge sequence: "How am I ever going to top this?" I didn't want to end the movie in Washington, D.C., like "X-Men," "Planet of the Apes" and "ID4." We made Alcatraz the place where they make the cure, and they use the bridge to get onto the island. I also incorporated the fans' big fantasy wet dreams from the comics, like the danger room, the postapocalyptic practice room where Colossus uses the fast-ball special: He takes Wolverine and throws him. I integrated that into the third act so there was no reason for the studio to say we didn't need a multimillion sequence that looks like "The Terminator"

THR: IN THIS "X-MEN," THE CHARACTERS TAKE TO THE AIR. IT'S THE MOST AMBITIOUS EFFECTS MOVIE YOU'VE EVER DONE.

Ratner: Bryan's effects were always reality-based, so I tried to keep the tone consistent with the first two movies. The action sequences were simple for me, but putting VFX (visual effects) on top of them complicated it. In order to make people fly, you need to do more wire work, which I learned because of my experience with Jackie Chan. I took a practical approach. Why were the first 'Star Wars' movies so much more visceral than the new ones? With greenscreen environments, it's harder for the actors and audience to hold on to something. When I read the biggest computer-graphics sequence on the bridge, I said, "How in hell am I going to do this?" We put Magneto and his brotherhood on a quarter of a mile section of the bridge we built on set in Vancouver, with extras, cars burning and flying pieces of scrap metal. That grounded it. CGI is used as an enhancement. When I first saw Weta's completed shot on the big screen, I was floored.

THR: YOU INHERITED SOME CAST BUT ADDED SOME NEW MEMBERS OF YOUR OWN.

Ratner: When you work with Shakespearean actors, you get good performances. Working with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in one scene, the walls were vibrating from their voices. I was new. If I was going to leave a mark, I was responsible for these new characters who weren't in the other "X-Men," like Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde and Ben Foster as Angel. Kelsey Grammer isn't going to be known as Frasier anymore, he'll be known as Beast. He has such power, he needed that deep Shakespearean voice to cut through a thick costume.

THR: SO THIS IS YOUR FIRST TIME HAVING A FILM IN THE OFFICIAL SELECTION?

Ratner: It's the ultimate thing to have a film here, it's the closest thing to going to the Academy Awards, the most prestigious experience for a director. Wherever the film is written about, it's a film "de Brett Ratner." I'm going to take a mental picture on the red steps; that's a memory I will hang onto for a long time.

THR: WHAT'S NEXT FOR YOU?

Ratner: ... I start "Rush Hour 3" on August 23. This time both Jackie and Chris (Tucker) are fishes-out-of-water in Paris. I've been begging Ian McKellen to do the very bad French villain, who is inspired by Max Von Sydow in "Three Days of the Condor."

[MacGuffin]

Message to X3 Moviegoers
Seeing The Last Stand this weekend? IGN has an important tip.

You're planning to see X-Men: The Last Stand this weekend, right? We expect most of you are. That being the case, apart from our regular reporting on the movie, IGN FilmForce now asks you to do one important thing. If you're an X-Men fan, you'll regret it if you don't! At the theater this weekend, when the credits roll, when the audiences begins to filter out of the exits... keep your seat. And then, perhaps, share this little secret with a few of your friends: the movie isn't over.

We don't want to spoil anything for you, but we want you to know that the scene that follows isn't your typical post-credits tack-on. It's a coda for one of the main characters. The scene is maybe 30 seconds in length, but it's enough. And it will surely be one of the more talked moments in the fan community.

Think you know what this scene is? Guess all you want, but chances are that you won't see it coming.

Major mutant war happens this Friday! Wolverine yells, "Hold the line!" - that stand's not easy. All you have to do is hold on through the end credits - that's much easier. You don't want miss the coda!

[MacGuffin]

Secrets of X-Womanhood Disclosed

CANNES, France (AP) - The women of "X-Men: The Last Stand" can kick your butt. The Associated Press sat down with Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, Rebecca Romijn and Anna Paquin at the Cannes Film Festival, where the movie premiered.

The third film based on the Marvel comics about superpowered mutants, "Last Stand" features Berry as weather-controlling Storm, Paquin as lifeforce-draining Rogue, Romijn as evil shapeshifter Mystique and Janssen as Jean Grey, a mega-telepath with a nasty alter ego called Dark Phoenix.

AP: Did you ever envy one another's superpowers?

Berry: I envied that I never really got to do my powers until the third movie. Fly and do electricity and spin and make a tornado like I got to do now. I envied that I never got to do what I do.

Paquin: I still never get to do anything. Three movies, absolutely no action. It's kind of amazing.

Romijn: Somebody's always got it worse than you.

Paquin: I managed to survive three action comic-book movies and pretty much almost not to see one single bit of real violence or, you know, action sequences.

Berry: You'll have to do a Rogue spinoff, just so you can do something.

Paquin: Dude, I don't know if anybody wants to see that, actually.

Berry: Well, you got a great love story. I didn't have that. I got no action and no story. I had nothing.

Paquin: I had some gloves.

AP: Who would win in a smackdown among Storm, Mystique, Rogue and Jean?

Janssen: Jean or Phoenix? If it's Phoenix, I say Phoenix wins.

Romijn: I would say Phoenix wins, too. I think we establish in `X-Men 3' that Phoenix is ultimately the most powerful.

Janssen: If you put Jean into the mix, I'm not sure how well she's going to fare.

Romijn: We've established that Jean hasn't been used to her full potential, so when she becomes Phoenix, it's a whole new thing. She's repressed.

Janssen: Yeah, Jean's got some issues. She's in therapy, if that makes you feel any better.

Paquin: Who would win depends if I'm going to be close enough to touch them. That's kind of a trump card, isn't it?

AP: So if Rogue sneaks up on Jean from behind ...

Paquin: Yeah, if she doesn't see it coming ...

Janssen: The thing is, of course, she can see it coming, because she reads minds.

Romijn: But Mystique could turn into any of them and just confuse everyone.

Janssen: And Storm can just make it misty and foggy.

Romijn: She would lose.

Janssen: She would lose because I can just see right through that fog.

AP: So what's up with the hair? Storm's got a powder-puff thing going this time and Jean's has turned fiery red.

Janssen: It was really a hair commercial, if you think about it. We all said, if you want to get a great hair commercial out of this movie, let's just make sure that the hair changes and upstages everything.

Romijn: They tried to give Mystique a bob. It was awful. Like a weird Mom bob. We went back to the old hair.

Berry: It's a woman's right to change her hair, and I think it's not by mistake that all the women have different hair, like, every time.

Paquin: I don't.

Berry: That's what women do. We change our hair.

Paquin: I don't.

AP: You don't what?

Paquin: I don't have different hair. I'm never different.

AP: With women so prevalent, are the "X-Men" movies female-empowerment films?

Romijn: What I like most about these movies is they're not gender-specific at all. Yeah, of course, the women kick butt, and so do the guys. It's a non-issue.

Paquin: It's never even addressed. When they're going into battle, it's more whose power is most useful.

Janssen: I find it's rare to see in a Hollywood movie, period, that many female characters. That many strong female characters. But specifically in the genre of comic-book adaptations, it just does not happen, because you have "Superman," you have "Batman," you have all these characters, and then you have the love interest. The fact that we have that many female characters in a movie of any size in Hollywood, it's great.

AP: Famke, was it more fun playing Jean as good or evil?

Janssen: The combination of the two. That's how I view people. It's how I view life. You can't stereotype people, you can't put them into boxes. Everybody is a complex individual who has both good and evil, sad and happy. You name it.

AP: Anna, why does Rogue find her ability to steal others' power a curse?

Paquin: She's completely isolated. She doesn't have the option of conducting a normal life or having normal relations with people. It's also a lot more recent. She's a lot younger, so it's been less time to get used to it. I feel like maybe if she had a little more time, she might have come to sort of accept that.

AP: Halle, how is it that Storm comes to really assert herself this time?

Berry: Storm finally steps up and takes a stand and asserts herself and has a voice. She becomes truly what she was in the comic book. She has to use all her powers finally for the good of all her team and for the good of what she believes in. For me as an actor, each time you want to feel like your character evolves and grows, and this time I feel like she did in spades. I enjoyed her so much more this time.

AP: Rebecca, why's Mystique the bad egg? Was she just a mutant from the wrong side of the tracks?

Romijn: I think she was probably so ostracized by the way she looked from a really young age. She was probably treated really bad because of it. I can understand why she was so angry. In the second movie, Nightcrawler asks her if she can look like everybody else, why don't you look like everyone? She says because you shouldn't have to. She has a really strong sense of identity. She really knows who she is.

AP: What kind of superhero would your moms have been happy to have you bring home as boyfriends?

Janssen: Oh, my God. Ask my mom, she's here.

Berry: I don't know. I'd just like one to tell the truth. I'd be happy with an honest one.

Romijn: Honesty Man!

Berry: Could you at least not lie? Tell the truth all the time?

Romijn: Love Man! I just want my daughter to be loved.

Janssen: Yeah, and be happy.

Romijn: Love Man, Honesty Man, Happy Man!

Janssen: No, not Happy Man. Me to be happy. Not a happy man. God, no.

Paquin: All of the above, how about that?

[©brad]

every comic fanboy's wet dream-- hot chicks having a roundtable about superheroes.

[hedwig]

halle berry comes off as an idiot.

my dear paquin conquers the roundtable discussion by a mile. this was pretty good:

Berry: It's a woman's right to change her hair, and I think it's not by mistake that all the women have different hair, like, every time.

Paquin: I don't.

Berry: That's what women do. We change our hair.

Paquin: I don't.

... and ...

Berry: Well, you got a great love story. I didn't have that. I got no action and no story. I had nothing.

Paquin: I had some gloves.