For a time, it seemed as if The Twilight Saga: Eclipse director, David Slade, would be the man to bring the X-Men's favorite son, Wolverine, back to the big screen in the sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine. After his name popped up on a short list of directors angling for the job, Slade even confessed to having met with title star Hugh Jackman to discuss the movie, which made him seem like a lock. However, as we all know now, the job of directing The Wolverine ultimately went to The Wrestler director, Darren Aronofsky, whose new film, Black Swan, is currently in theaters. So, where did that leave Slade? Back to directing commercials and spending "a lot of time reading trying to find the right thing to do next." In a recent interview with HitFix, Slade discussed the "torturous" process of choosing a project, losing out on The Wolverine to Aronofsky and what projects he has lined up next.
Slade said that finding the next project to direct is a complicated, time-consuming process.
Things aren’t as simple as choosing and opening the door and walking through it. You know, there are torturous meetings, there are friendly meetings, there are meetings that you get to the point where you’re about to start out work on something and then everything shifts and the world falls from beneath your feet. The process of getting a feature film, getting [it] green-lit unless you’re one of the very, very, very, very, very, select few people is actually very complicated. Takes a lot of your time.
Since Eclipse, Slade said that he has had many movie offers, but was really only interested in directing two of them, one of them being The Wolverine.
I must have read or been at least offered 40+ projects. I’ve gone after two. And therefore for reasons that are completely valid, those things didn’t happen. The Wolverine was like that, I had a great meeting with Hugh Jackman. We were all ready to go and then Darren Aronofsky, who has a great relationship with Hugh, showed up. You kind of feel like: "Well, the girlfriend’s come back. I can either put up a fight here or I can just let nature take its course."
Now, Slade said that he has a trio of varied projects in mind for his next feature, but he won't "commit to or announce" the movies until he is sure that he will be making one of them.
There are lots of things that are interesting but to me there is a head space you go into when you’re going after making a film. I have that head space for three films right now. One is small. It’s very interesting. It’s an amazing writer. One is large. It’s very interesting. It’s one of those kind of genre defining films that comes along every now and again. I’d be lucky to be doing it. And then one is just a really gritty, angry film which would be great for me to do as well. So, with the process of getting one of those three films, you know, has so many steps on it that I couldn’t give you.... I don’t even have a clue which one I’m going to do. All I know is I love those three projects and I’m going after them with all of my heart.
Slade summed up his moviemaking philosophy in a single sentence that seems like such an obvious formula for success that any director would do well to heed it, and yet it still seems to escape so many of them.
Get the best script and the best actors possible and then the best crew to make the best film, so that it can be as successful as possible.
Read more about Eclipse Director David Slade on Losing Out on Directing The Wolverine to Darren Aronofsky .
