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Warner Bros hires Guy Ritchie to direct DC's Lobo

Out Of My Vulcan Mind

Out Of My Vulcan Mind

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The Hollywood Reporter and Variety report that Guy Ritchie has signed to direct the DC Comics property Lobo. Joel Silver, who has been developing the film for a decade, will produce along with Akiva Goldsman and Andrew Rona. The film will aim for an irreverent tone, but will be toned down in content from the comics to achieve a PG-13 rating. Lobo will be portayed as an intergalactic mercenary/bounty hunter anti-hero rather than as the mass murderer of The Last Czarnian.

Joel Silver has also long been developing a number of other DC properties, including Wonder Woman, Sgt. Rock, and Swamp Thing. Guy Ritchie is also attached to direct Sgt. Rock, but that's on the backburner again. Silver recently said that he thinks he's quite close to moving forward with Swamp Thing, which he may make as a 3-D film.
 
Out Of My Vulcan Mind said:
The Hollywood Reporter and Variety report that Guy Ritchie has signed to direct the DC Comics property Lobo. Joel Silver, who has been developing the film for a decade, will produce along with Akiva Goldsman...
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Cue the boos from unforgiving fanboys.

Out Of My Vulcan Mind said:
... and Andrew Rona. The film will aim for an irreverent tone, but will be toned down in content from the comics to achieve a PG-13 rating. Lobo will be portayed as an intergalactic mercenary/bounty hunter anti-hero rather than as the mass murderer of The Last Czarnian.

Joel Silver has also long been developing a number of other DC properties, including Wonder Woman, Sgt. Rock, and Swamp Thing. Guy Ritchie is also attached to direct Sgt. Rock, but that's on the backburner again. Silver recently said that he thinks he's quite close to moving forward with Swamp Thing, which he may make as a 3-D film.
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If we held his kids hostage, would Silver be able to get things going on Wonder Woman?
 
Silver eventually lost his option on Green Lantern and it's moving forward with other producers. He's said that he has a little while longer on his Wonder Woman option, but not too much longer. It sounds like he'll lose the option if he doesn't move ahead within a year or two.
 
Warner Bros. can assign WW to another producer if Joel Silver fails to get anywhere? That's good to know.
 
A PG-13 Lobo is probably even more worrying than the presence of Goldsman. If the latter is confined to production duties and kept away from typewriters, word processors and crayons, then there's not too much to worry about.

But Richie ought to be capable of making a decent Lobo movie - his first two movies had the sort of glorious anarchic violence that go with The Main Man. Shame he won't be given a bloodier canvas to play with, though.
 
Akiva Goldsman has some awful films on his CV, but he's also produced and written some very entertaining films, and even risen to the level of excellence at least once.
 
Quite frankly, I'm tempted to be dismissive enough to wonder if it'll be worth a damn if it has to work with a PG-13 rating.

I suppose it's best to just wait until some more details emerge. It's definitely at the very least interesting.
 
Out Of My Vulcan Mind said:
Akiva Goldsman has some awful films on his CV, but he's also produced and written some very entertaining films, and even risen to the level of excellence at least once.
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I've just looked at his IMDB entry. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0326040/ It's hardly Uwe Boll-level bad but it's not exactly Spielberg or Scorsese level either.

As a producer, I'd say his best efforts were I Am Legend, Starsky and Hutch and Deep Blue Sea. But that category also includes Constantine, Lost in Space and Mr & Mrs Smith.

As a writer, of those I've seen, I'd only rate I Am Legend (though the book was better), I, Robot, the Fringe teleplays and the adaptation of Grisham's The Client (I thought the script for A Time To Kill was pants).

I don't rate A Beautiful Mind at all, I thought the script was shallow and banal, even before I knew he wrote it. For my money, it was one of the most over-rated Oscar winners of recent years all round. I've heard good things about Cinderella Man, but given that its the same team behind ABM, I'm not optimistic.

And should I be accused of being an 'unforgiving fanboy', I'm happy to say that I do think that Joel Shumacher, director of Batman and Robin and Batman Forever is a very good director on a good day.
 
Cinderella Man is what I was referring to when I said he's risen to genuine excellence at least once. A Beautiful Mind was good, but not good enough to merit its award glory.

Deep Blue Sea I consign to the crap pile, along with Batman and Robin, Poseidon, and Angels & Demons. Batman Forever isn't what I look for in a Batman film, but it's not too bad. The Client, A Time to Kill, Starsky & Hutch, I, Robot, Constantine, Mr & Mrs Smith, I Am Legend, and Hancock were all solidly entertaining to varying degrees.

He's hardly a guarantee of quality, but it's not as if everything he's produced has been crap either.
 
^ True - but for my money, none of the comic adaptations he's been involved in to date have been much cop. Still, Jonah Hex, which he's producing, looks promising. If it turn out good, we can probably worry less about this or the FF reboot he's also producing.
 
Holy frag! A Lobo movie? DC's coolest character ever :)
But I really don't see the comics transfered very well to any other media than comics. But I may be surprised :)
 
Actually, there's been so much discussion over Goldsman's, and to a lesser extent Ritchie',s CV that we haven't had the usual fight over who to cast in the main role.

I suppose Ron Perlman is out, as he's already Hellboy. Can otherwise imagine him in this role very easily.

Vin Diesel perhaps? Oddly, I just can't imagine Lobo sounding like Vin, for whatever reason. Gravelly rough voice, just a different gravelly rough voice.

Mickey Rourke? He managed to complete shooting on Iron Man 2 without any major disasters, so he clearly can hold it together for the making of a blockbuster. But would the studio put him in a leading role?

I'd be kind of scared that Ritchie might cast his old mate Vinny Jones, though ...
 
Vinny Jones? That is a scary thought.

It occurs to me that if they went the route of using some prosthetic muscles and perspective tricks to make the actor look much taller than he actually is that Robert Downey Jr might make a good Lobo. He could certainly nail the Main Man's 'tude. And Downey Jr is in tight with Joel Silver (the only major producer who continued to hire RDJ during his worst times, even when completion bond companies wouldn't insure him) and has just worked with Guy Ritchie on the Joel Silver-produced Sherlock Holmes.

But if the deal is finalized for RDJ to shoot Cowboys and Aliens next year then that that would likely mean he'd be unavailable since Warners is aiming for production to start on Lobo in the first half of next year.
 
^ Hmm, RDJ, interesting. But I also suspect that his high-profile gig as Iron Man might rule him out of the running for another superhero gig, particularly given Marvel and DC's rivalry.

What about his lookalike Jeffrey Dean Morgan? He's shown he can handle superhero duties in Watchmen.
 
Yeah, I can see Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the role. If they want someone who's a genuine muscleman and who can actually act then it's a hard role to cast. The Rock? Maybe, maybe not. He's made mostly poor choices in the films he's signed up for, but I still see potential in him.
 
Out Of My Vulcan Mind said:
Yeah, I can see Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the role. If they want someone who's a genuine muscleman and who can actually act then it's a hard role to cast. The Rock? Maybe, maybe not. He's made mostly poor choices in the films he's signed up for, but I still see potential in him.
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Yeah, but his films usually make bank. And The Rundown is one of the most underrated action movies ever. And he was great in Be Cool.

I nominate Ron Pearlman. Yeah, yeah Hellboy blah blah. I just can't see anyone else playing such an over-the-top character.
 
Rating Akiva Goldsman:
Hancock was a decent idea with wildly uneven execution.
I Am Legend was brilliant, although that was almost exclusively due to Will Smith.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith was overrated. Hardly the best work from Jolie or Pitt.
Constantine was awesome! Probably the best movie on Goldsman's resume.
Deep Blue Sea is a great guilty pleasure.
Lost in Space was crap but mildly fun crap that was somewhat salvaged by Gary Oldman's performance as Dr. Smith. But everyone else involved in making this should feel deeply ashamed.
The Da Vinci Code was crap. Angels & Demons was only marginally better.
Cinderella Man is a great feel good movie. Among Goldsman's best, next to Constantine.
I Robot has a decently intelligent premise.
But we must never forget the atrocities of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.:p

Joel Silver has a long resume of excellence too long to mention. Suffice to say, this is a guy who produced Die Hard, The Matrix, & V for Vendetta. With that resume, I'd follow him barefoot into hell. The only real piece of crap (that I've seen and can verify as crap) was The Invasion.

I agree that the greatest concern should be with the PG-13 rating. Hopefully, they'll try for a very borderline PG-13 (ala Daredevil or The Dark Knight) and then put out the unrated version on DVD.

Captaindemotion said:
And should I be accused of being an 'unforgiving fanboy', I'm happy to say that I do think that Joel Shumacher, director of Batman and Robin and Batman Forever is a very good director on a good day.
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Certainly true. Phone Booth is a masterpiece.

Captaindemotion said:
I suppose Ron Perlman is out, as he's already Hellboy.
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Not necessarily. Halle Berry was both Catwoman and Storm. (OK, bad example, but imagine it with a better actress.)

Still, my short list would probably go, in order:
1. Mickey Rourke
2. Ron Perlman
3. Jeffrey Dean Morgan
4. Eric Bana
5. Vin Diesel
6. Kurt Russell
 
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