Sunday, 14 May 2017

Maisie Williams is the Doc... I mean, Wolfsbane

I'm about fifty-fifty on the continued existence of the X-Men movies. On the one hand, Logan was just about as perfect an ending as the franchise could ever ask for. On the other hand, I know that Fox are going to keep making these things until the heat death of the universe so I might as well hope for the best.

Not that hoping for the best is an entirely logical course of action here. Fox do have a strong tendency towards ruining a good thing. Take X-Men: First Class, a great reboot for the franchise until Days Of Future Past came along to reveal that it wasn't a reboot after all and, by the way, every character from First Class who wasn't in the opening trilogy is now dead. Brilliant move, Fox.
So imagine my mix feelings when a New Mutants movie was announced. The original New Mutants are, without a doubt, my favourite X-team ever but you know what other characters I love in this franchise? Storm, who in these films is a characterless cipher. Kitty Pryde, who represents the most criminal waste of Ellen Page ever committed to film even before she gets magic time travel powers from nowhere.

The batting average is not high here.

Still, they've just announced that Maisie Williams will be playing Wolfsbane: a shy Scottish Catholic girl who turns into a wolf and has abandonment issues like you wouldn't believe. It is (potentially) a great role and Williams is a fantastic actress, even if she is a bit wasted in Game Of Thrones just by virtue of being part of such a large ensemble cast. Fox has even made a big thing about how they're only auditioning “ethnically appropriate” actors for Sunspot and Dani Moonstar which, given its both Hollywood and Fox, is something of a minor miracle.

I want to hope here but the simple fact is that we've had Deadpool and Logan in rapid succession and that's more quality than Fox has generally been able to put out in so short a time. Now, either they've learnt that they can make more money out of good films or its a fluke.

Please let them have learnt. If they can learn then maybe Warner Bros can take a stab at it. 

No comments: