When the story broke on Wednesday that David Slade was leaving the reboot of Fox's failing Daredevil franchise, the news was greeted by comic fans with a grain of salt. Fox are under a time constraint to get this movie into production, apparently by this autumn, or they risk losing the rights to Daredevil back to Disney's Marvel Studios division.
Fox seems to be scrambling to sign up a gifted director who can work with an already existing script and get the film into production immediately. Now, this is where it gets scary: I can think of at least two precedent setting incidents, one under the Fox umbrella, where a last minute production had to be whipped up.
The first was the infamous, yet now beloved, Fantastic Four film produced and directed by Roger Corman in 1994. Corman's film was never intended to be released, but just filmed and kept on a shelf to retain the property rights until a Fantastic Four film could be produced that did the property justice. It has since made the rounds at conventions and on the internet on bootleg VHS, DVD, and on file sharing sites. In the meantime, New Horizons studio let the property rights lapse and fall into the hands of Fox Studios. The rest is history; a FF film and sequel were released to decent box office results, despite loathsome script and casting errors, causing much pain for Marvel comics and movie fans. Now this series is being rebooted by Fox under the artistic guidance of Chronicle's Josh Trank, which at least gives fans some solace that these beloved characters will be treated with respect this time around.
Accompanying the news that their Fantastic Four production had found its director, Fox released word that their Daredevil reboot had lost their helmer to the NBC network, and their new TV production of Hannibal, the Thomas Harris killer/cannibal property. Rumors are circulating that Fox is happy with their Daredevil script, but the studio has just 2-3 months to get a director, budget, locations, and cast & crew hired to get rolling! Not to mention that Fox has set a precedent of these situations before, including their currently-lensing Wolverine production that lost Oscar-winner Darren Aronovsky, and their abominable X-Men: The Last Stand, where critically respected Matthew Vaughn left, refusing to work under time-constraints, and was replaced by hired gun Brett Ratner, most famous for his Rush Hour series of Chris Tucker starrers.
You can see now why I'm a tad reticent about this director situation... Fox has shown a track record of rushing their films into production without a properly developed script. They are also famous for playing fast and loose with Marvel continuity (Dr. Doom's origin, Havoc is Cyclops' dad, etc.) and, worst of all, they have a history of hiring Brett Ratner.
"No, they wouldn't do that!" you protest, but do an IMDb search and have a look at Ratner's production schedule: his movie Rogue is completed, and his Untitled Farrelly/Wessler Comedy is in post-production, leaving him open for all of 2013! I'm thinking it looks not only possible, but probable, that his name is bandying around the Fox Movies office as of this moment!
With the production is such disarray as it is, I don't really understand why Fox is persisting in retaining intellectual properties that they neither respect nor understand! X-Men First Class was their best offering to date, despite running roughshod over comics continuity, and it didn't even make back its production budget domestically. Daredevil 2003 made a profit but it was reviled. If the film starts before the end of this year as expected, then the earliest it could be released
is Christmas 2013 where it would be demolished by The Hobbit, or in spring 2014 when it will come head-to-head with Marvel Studios' Captain America 2 juggernaut.
Fox needs to let this go. They seem to be attached to these properties, wishing to either recapture the success of X2, or emulate Marvel's The Avengers phenomenon, which is not just due to their careful construction of a shared cinematic universe, but to the massive conglomeration of A-list star power that the film possessed, and the vision carried forth by the auteur-like control of Joss Whedon.
It's not going to work Fox. If the Daredevil reboot script was any good, then no filmmaker would let it escape them to do TV. Why can't this studio respect the nigh-sacred inseparability of the script and director? The writer writes, but the director brings it to life and this process is an intrinsic necessity!
I promise you that no Oscar winning director in modern times has worked as a gun for hire, nor any that respects the material they generate. Maybe Fox needs to focus on just one Marvel property; they got off to a decent start with First Class. If they give Whedon-like control to Trank, then maybe they can handle two franchises (as long as they don't botch Dr. Doom's origin again) but they need to recognize that this Daredevil reboot is a stunt they can't survive!