Vaughn Voyage

Okay...I know...really bad pun.

But as everyone is reporting, Matthew Vaughn has pulled out of directing X-Men 3 for scheduling reasons. Something to do with his family arrangements. Avi Arad claims that he is not at all happy with having to drop out of the project and now FOX is struggling to find a new director at the last minute because they are holding fast to their release date.

I can understand FOX being reluctant to reschedule since they're already planning on an X-Men movie for this year financially, and the expectations of their stockholders probably don't help much, but dropping into a project that's likely over a year into development and asking them to just take over is a tough thing to do. It can turn out great sometimes (Antonia Bird on Ravenous, for example) or it can be pretty ugly (too numerous to mention). Still, they have the actors waiting and signed on and if they release them to other projects there's no knowing when they'll all be available again. Add to that Patrick Stewart's continuing health problems and you have a production that's in a hurry to get things done.

I just hope they don't drop the ball.

In my opinion, this is a great opportunity for them to patch things up with Singer and wait for him to finish Superman but we all know that won't happen.

Wait and see, I guess. I'm curious to see how this all ends up playing out.

mike