At a press day for his most recent film Rendition, Gavin Hood took some time out to talk about his next project, the X-Men prequel/sequel Wolverine. When asked why he took on the project, he was unexpectedly candid.
"I'll give you two answers really quickly," he began. "One is called a college fund for my twins. That's what you're going to say so why don't we say it? You know, it's not often that a script like Rendition comes across your desk. We think that scripts are just out there and they're not."
"I'll tell you why I love Wolverine. The truth is, I didn't at first. When Wolverine was offered to me, I went, 'Well, I'm the wrong guy for this.' And then I spoke with Hugh Jackman and the truth is that what's great about the Wolverine character, he's really a character who suffers from a great deal of existential angst."
Hood also hopes to add a bit more to the character of Wolverine – pulling a lot from his angsty comic book model – then just the blade wielding warrior. "What I do love about the Wolverine character is that there is within that character a great deal of disconnection from who he really is and what it means to be human. So what we're really getting a chance to do is do opera. We're taking human emotion and in the way that you would have Zeus throwing thunder bolts, it's three claws."
Thankfully the script, being written by David Benioff, is expected to delve in to the origins of Wolverine, including the origin of the Weapon-X program, and he’ll most likely cross paths with names such as Victor Creed (AKA Sabretooth), William Stryker, The Blob and John Wraith.
And, with a budget upwards of a $100 million, the special effects also drew Hood in to his directors chair. "Well, it's another reason to do it because to work in a visual way, my first film world was still photography and I love the visuals," Hood said. "Yes, to work at a level of heightened visual effects is going to be an amazing experience."
Set to begin production at the end of November, Wolverine will film at Fox Studios Australia (along with everything else apparently…) where producer-star Jackman is also shooting Baz Luhrmann's WWII epic, Australia. Wolverine is likely to his cinemas in 2009.