Last October, Chronicle writer Max Landis’ dad and one of the great comedy directors of the 1980s, John Landis, told the people in attendance at an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences screening of An American Werewolf in London that Fox was going to look elsewhere for a writer to handle Chronicle 2, because the studio didn’t like the idea that his son brought to them. Several months later, Max told IGN that all was well and dad was just yapping about nothing, and that everything was “moving along,” with the only holdup being that he was working on “a hundred other movies.”
But it appears that all was not well and Fox didn’t really care for the script after all, because the younger Landis confirmed on Twitter last month that he won’t be writing the sequel. But he really opened up about the film that he would have called Martyr on Saturday, as he Tweeted out the ideas that he had originally presented to Fox for a much darker second film.
In retrospect, I’m not even sure if fans of the first film would’ve been ready or eager for my second instalment as originally written.
Gone was the aspirational “what would you do,” gone were the pranks and bromance, gone were lovely tragic Andrew and hopeful, bright Steve.
In their place was a dark, frustratingly unblinking stare into a complicated world that posed the question is it worth it to be a hero, old from the point of view of a heartbroken and insane woman who would martyr herself to the cause of being the world’s first villain.
It was, in my estimation, a sequel that elaborated on the ideas and situations from the first to create a different genre of movie.
In the best of worlds, in my optimistic but wildly prejudiced eyes, this could make it an Aliens, a Terminator 2…in the worst a Grease 2.
So at the end of the day, maybe it’s better that Martyr never saw the light of day. Sad I didn’t get to do some of my other versions.
The most frustrating thing is that I don’t know if I’ll get the opportunity to explain what MOGO was or what he was doing in that cave.
(Via Bleeding Cool)
While it would have been pretty cool to see a superhero movie with a female villain, especially if that movie is a sequel to a film that plenty of people liked, it sounds like business as usual for the studio versus the artist. That’s a bummer, but time and receipts will tell if Fox made the right choice with a Chronicle sequel, if it ever happens, and Landis can go about his own business and make something even better.
Preferably not a new Blues Brothers movie.