Wanted To Become a Trilogy?

Posted by on July 2nd, 2008   Filed under: Action, Books/Comics, Rumours
Source: Cinema Blend

wantedtrilogy.jpg

It didn’t take long, but already there are whispers of a sequel in response to the $50 million opening weekend notched by Timur Bekmambetov’s Hollywood filmmaking debut Wanted. The fact that the movie’s success was somewhat overshadowed by Pixar’s Wall-E has not stopping Universal from keeping the ball rolling. Wanted is essentially this year’s 300, and I’m sure will only continue to make money throughout the summer due to strong word of mouth.

Now, the interesting thing is that the folks over at Cinema Blend received an inside scoop indicating that they are actually looking to turn Wanted into a trilogy. It’s not surprisingly, really, since the general approach by studios nowadays is to automatically bank on two sequels once the first one has proven itself. The big question is where they would go with the story next. The graphic novel was pretty self-contained, and although they did stray quite a bit from the comic book pages, the movie felt self-contained as well. Word on the street is that the sequels might have James McAvoy’s character taking on other Fraternity cells in different parts of the world, which sounds kind of lame to me. They basically ditched the idea of him being a true villain (in the comic he actually rapes and kills innocent people for fun), and his character arc already seems complete. Either way, James McAvoy, Terence Stamp and Angelina Jolie are all supposed to be returning for future installments, which would likely involve flashbacks of some sort. Who’s in?



  • They should have planned ahead and ended Wanted after the train scene. Pull an Empire Strikes Back and make people want to see the next one.

    But really, I would prefer a prequel set 1,000 years earlier. Bending crossbow bolts? Count me in!

  • Goon

    Wanted is probably my least favorite film from this year so far. Not in. I don’t think I was this bored at the theater since partway through Transformers when I realized things weren’t gonna get any better.

  • Captain N

    I agree with Goon.

  • See, for the life of me I can’t comprehend anyone being bored during Wanted… maybe annoyed at the overload of style and the smarmy narration. But bored? I don’t know.

    Now bored during Speed Racer, that I can understand. ;)

    I don’t know, the more we get into discussions like this, the more I just think our impressions of movies are completely controlled by expectations and our own attitudes going in to a movie. It just feels so impossible to be objective. Not that I don’t think your opinions are valid and honest or anything. Come to think of it, I don’t even know that I went in with a really positive outlook on Wanted, but somehow I came away really enjoying it. What more can I say.

  • @ “But really, I would prefer a prequel set 1,000 years earlier. Bending crossbow bolts?”

    that’s awesome. I’m not a big fan of the movie but I think it would be cool to see Angelina Joli’s story. But they’re not going to go in that direction I guess.
    I agree, the story they’re talking about sounds like a rerun. Lame.

  • Greg

    I’m not sure I’m interested. I wasn’t bored watching Wanted, though. I did think it was pretty funny, but for the wrong reasons. Jay is completely right in thinking that if this movie was made 20 years ago, it would be a comedy. Although I do disagree with Martin Short. This movie would have been made with Rick Moranis in the McAvoy role.

  • @ “Jay is completely right in thinking that if this movie was made 20 years ago, it would be a comedy.”

    Is it me or is Jay obsessed with this sort of reasoning? He’s always making statements like “if The Guru were directed by John Carpenter and had fake film scratches everyone would laugh”.Or “If the Happening co-stared Kurt Russell and were set in the future” etc etc.

    I think he’s done it in every episode for the past month or so. It’s completely bizarre.

  • My Martin Short comment was actually made off of the show. I was just saying that Wanted reminded me of Innerspace (in a somewhat unexplainable way) and that if it was made 20 years ago, it probably would’ve starred Martin Short.

    As for other examples of me using that line of reasoning, both examples you gave you made up. I’m trying to remember when I actually said that. I can recall doing it once recently, but I forget what the topic was. I’m pretty sure I started off by saying ‘I hate when people say this, but…’

  • @ “both examples you gave you made up. ”

    yes

  • If Jay was a critic 20 years ago he would have given Innerspace 2 thumbs up.

  • If I was a critic NOW I’d give Innerspace two thumbs up.

  • After seeing Wanted and being…not disappointed, but under-whelmed, I suppose…I went back and re-read the comic book. As soon as I finished revisiting the sixth and final issue, I immediately realized why I didn’t really like the Wanted movie all that much: because the comic is waaaaaay better. The action in the movie was pretty darn good (though I feel that it got more bland and boring as the movie progressed), and the first thirty minutes or so were hilarious and spot-on with what the comic had going for it, but as the plot of the movie began to turn into something NOT AT ALL like the comic book, I thought it lost a lot of worth. I don’t say this because it was merely changed from it’s original story, but because the new story for the movie was in fact way less interesting and well-achieved than that of it’s paper and ink counterpart.

    I would not like to see another Wanted movie. I would, however, love to see a second Wanted comic book mini-series.

  • Goon

    Yes, I was definitely bored. I can appreciate someone being bored by Speed Racer, probably in the same sense I was bored by Wanted. or Shoot Em Up. or 300. Its like this:

    If you’re not interested in the characters, and if the action isn’t presented to you in a way that feels intense, then no matter how many kills, decapitations, whatever, are happening on screen, they can end up feeling boring. With Speed Racer the batshit insaneness of it and cartoonish fun was right up my alley and I just smiled the whole way through, with Wanted, well, Speed Racer I think spoiled me. In comparison it seemed downright serious and not very fun, and Jolie’s case, kind of sexless, which is weird considering her character is based off of Catwoman. The whole thing felt less like a readers digest of other cool films and more a tired pastiche of other films, kind of like how Equilibrium, to me, is simply dumbed down Matrix and Orwell, as written by a 13 year old.

    So with Wanted, yeah, there’s a lot happening on screen, but it felt so distant, disconnected, just there. I didn’t care about anything that was happening. No matter how many cars were flipping, bullets were curving, ‘fuck you’s’ were uttered, it was almost an out of body experience feeling where the movie was playing in one world and I was in another. I didnt’ care. I was bored. Shoot Em Up did the same for me when the carrot jokes got tired and it was all gunplay. 300 did the same for me after the first stylized battle sequence when it went into lather rinse repeat mode. I said over on the RowThree board part of it may be a revelation to me that I find gunplay the most boring of all weapon based mischief, but still, I can only blame the director for not giving me anything to be excited about.

  • blah blah blah. What film hasn’t decided to become a trilogy. “Wanted” was shit, and two more sequels would be shit. I hate to be that guy– but in this case it’s warranted.

  • Primal

    Does anyone really want to know more about the Wanted universe? I don’t think anyone wants to know more about the Fraternity. Maybe a five-minute backstory on it to give us some substance would of been nice.
    I can understand why movies like The Matrix and Shrek went on to do sequels. The world they created had a lot potential. If those movies accomplished it is all up to you.

    If they did the sequels like the Alien Quadrilogy where you had a different director&writer for each movie, then maybe I’d have an interest. Even though I liked Wanted, count me out for two more of these movies.

  • Ryan

    And here I was thinking my posts might be neglected as tl;dr fodder. I enjoy long posts when they aren’t to ranty. ; )

    “I immediately realized why I didn’t really like the Wanted movie all that much: because the comic is waaaaaay better.” -Rian

    I haven’t seen the film yet and contrary to what Sean might think about some of us; I form my opinion after seeing the film. But based on the trailer though, I doubt my opinion will change. I may enjoy it (I can value entertainment over emotional substance in many instances, but I’d rather have both), but I know if they just stuck with the source it could have been the best of both worlds. Just imagine, it would have started a new Hollywood Gold Rush. (“Forget superheroes! They want supervillians!” would be the screams heard from many money hungry execs across Tinseltown.)

    I’ve been drastically wrong on trailer impressions before, but then again those did not have source material I had already enjoyed (Hustle & Flow, There Will Be Blood, and Into the Wild are ones just off the top of my head). The reason I’m skeptical of enjoying this was briefly summarized when Sean wrote that they “basically ditched the idea of him being a true villain (in the comic he actually rapes and kills innocent people for fun), and his character arc already seems complete.” Yes, that was one of the reasons Wanted was so acclaimed among the comics crowd and the very thing the writers have seemed to seek out and destroy.

  • 1138

    What a piece of crap movie! Glad I only paid a half price matinee to see this awful piece of crap! Definitely the worst movie of the summer…Then again I haven’t see the Happening yet.

    If they make a trilogy count me out. The movie was preposterous and amateur…I figured out all the twists half way through the movie and as secret assassins they make too much freakin noise! It’s a wonder why they are still so secret after all these years!!

    Also I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Morgan Freeman actually bored in a movie…He usually makes everything great but man that was a awful performance. James McAvoy was OK but not my choice for a action star and even though I enjoyed some of Jolie’s scenes they were really contrive and she really had nothing to work with.

    It was really just a plain dumb movie. Bleeaaaahhhh!!!

  • joe

    I hate calling things a “trilogy”. It’s such marketing bs. Basically the second movie sucks, but then they remember what was good about the original in the third.

    Especially if it is in retrospect. I mean, it’s OK (like Jay says on the podcast recently) to make a movie into two parts or something, if you write it that way. But after-the-fact branding of sequels and trilogies is just dumb.

  • Are they gonna call it Wanted 2 or Wanted: The fraternity…??

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