Although I can't say I'm counting down the days to the release of
The A-Team, I am pleased that director
Joe Carnahan finally got his big chance under the blockbuster spotlight, and seemingly, to do it the way he wanted to do it. It's true that Carnahan has been dealt some pretty shitty cards over the last few years. The absolute low point probably being his disagreement with Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner over what
Mission Impossible III should have been which led to him exiting the director's chair on a movie that should have been his big break. He had no choice but to sit and watch J.J. Abrams deliver a $400 million worldwide hit. But he licked his wounds, made a killer low-budget action ensemble with
Smokin' Aces (though it was criminally under-seen by the masses), and it looked like Carnahan was back to take on the world again. Then, he was dealt three duff hands. (I promise, I do eventually get to talk about
Preacher if you click read more) The saga over
Bunny Lake is Missing (producer/lead star
Reese Witherspoon left weeks before filming) and then his failings to get the James Ellroy sequel to
L.A. Confidential (
White Jazz with George Clooney and Chris Pine) and
Killing Pablo (with
Christian Bale & Javier Bardem) off the ground might have killed the enthusiasm in any other director. But as we said, he has licked his wounds once again and
The A-Team is looking on course to make 20th Century Fox a princely sum when it opens in the U.S. on Friday, and hopefully the world should open up for Carnahan again. Maybe, just maybe... he might be able to make the kind of films he really wants to make. Like this one...
Speaking to
Superhero Hype over the weekend, Carnahan makes it publicly known he wants to direct an adaptation of
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillion's much lauded & long in big screen development comic series Preacher, which has
a completed screenplay by John August but no director after
Sam Mendes bailed earlier this year to make
Bond 23. Or to try and make Bond 23 as hindsight suggests.
"I'm kind of desperate to do another comic book adaptation... And the other thing I'm really keen on or interested in is 'Preacher' because I'm a big Garth Ennis fan and I love that series and that's out there, and that might be something I really love that. You gotta do the Allfather (D'Aronique) and all that crazy sh*t and I haven't seen a script and I don't know what it is, but yeah, we'll see. Who knows?"
Carnahan, a big comics fan, also mentions Marvel Z-list supervillain
Taskmaster as another property he has his eye on. Well I suppose with the
Iron Man's and
Captain America's of this world taken, you gotta look a little deeper in the Marvel goodie box to find a toy no-one else wants to play with;
"For Alex (Young, producer of "The A-Team") I was going to do Taskmaster. Originally I wanted to do Juggernaut 'cause I had a really good take on that, and then Taskmaster was something we talked about, and I haven't discussed it with him for ages, but I would love to get back in. I love the idea of a guy with photographic reflexes, he can see something and repeat it, I thought that was such a cool idea. I think there's a Moon Knight series where he just beats the sh*t out of Taskmaster and kind of ruined him, and it's a cool character. I think it might be one of those Marvel characters you really need to reimagine because he's got the whole skull and capeit's a bit grandiose I thinkbut it would certainly be a cool thing." "It was very much in the realm of the Punisher," he continued. "It's kind of funny because it's almost what they were going to do with Deadpool, that same sort of smart-ass thing, before they went the way of--and I know that there are fans that hated Fox for doing that whole thing with Deadpool and Reynolds in 'Wolverine'--but you have to create that differentiation. I think at least Taskmaster, he's so below the radar. He's even below where Blade was considered a B-tier Marvel character, this guy is even lesser-known. It would be a lot of fun to write it as a series and then see what came from there."
Ok, I'm a comics nerd but not that much of a nerd to know who Taskmaster is. So
Wiki is my friend, who informs me that he is a nemesis of Deadpool and Moon Knight...
...believed to have been born in the Bronx, New York City... he has the ability to mimic the physical movements of anyone he witnesses. He claims that he has had this ability since childhood, although he was on one occasion identified as a mutant. He works as a combat instructor and trains others to become lackeys for other villains by utilizing the techniques he has learned from his observation of superheroes and participates in mercenary jobs from time to time. Initially portrayed as a villain, he has also been shown as training U.S. Agent and other neophyte superheroes at the behest of the US government. A mercenary, he has no ideology except for that of his employer. Due to his ability to imitate the techniques and armory of other heroes and villains, the Taskmaster has occasionally been used to impersonate other characters.
Christ Joe, you might have the world at your feet in 7 days time if
The A-Team hits big and that's the superhero movie you want to make? Surely Taskmaster should only seen the light of day as a villain in a big superhero's movie? Anyway - Carnahan's
Preacher sounds like something that we might be interested in,
Smokin' Aces in particular feeling like a good audition tape for the series. But, it's just Carnahan putting his interest out there. Whether he will be considered seriously for the project probably depends on how
The A-Team performs this weekend, and how desperate Columbia are to see a
Preacher film made.