Screenwriter, and producer, Simon
Kinberg has become one of the faces of the superhero movie genre, thanks in
part to the awesome (in my opinion) X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Kinberg is currently working on
the Fantastic Four reboot with director Josh Tranks, and already has the cogs
on the X-Men: Apocalypse set in motion. But the screenwriter and producer has
other projects on the plate like J.J. Abrams Star Wars: Episode VII, where he
is credit as a "creative consultant", Magic: The Gathering and
Gambit.
Speaking to The Daily Beast,
Kinberg confirmed, although not specifically, the cast for the upcoming X-Men:
Apocalypse. He also talked about the tone for the Fantastic Four reboot, the
status of the Magic: The Gathering movie, Tatum and not Kitsch, Michael B.
Jordan, and more.
SPOILERS // WARNING
// SPOILERS // WARNING // SPOILERS
SPOILERS // WARNING
// SPOILERS // WARNING // SPOILERS
Is the
sequel, X-Men: Apocalypse, going
to just feature the younger generation of characters?
It will focus
primarily on the First Class cast,
but it will certainly have some of the original cast involved, too.
...
What’s
the tone going to be? The first Fantastic films were very slapstick and stupid.
The tone of this
movie will feel as unique as when you saw Iron Man, X-Men, or Batman
Begins for the first
time. It’s not as goofy as the first movies; it has humor in it, but the humor
is much more real and comes from character, not pratfall jokes. It’s a much
more dramatic film than it is a comedy. I would say it falls somewhere between
Raimi’s first couple of Spider-Man movies
and Chronicle.
I was just speaking
with Jamie Foxx about how there’s really no reason why you can’t make
superheroes be a different ethnicity—like you did in Fantastic Four, casting
Michael B. Jordan, a black actor, as The Human Torch. It seems like we’ve come
a long way since the first Fantastic Four films, when they basically made
Jessica Alba white… which was crazy.
[Laughs] Yeah, the
way we went about casting Fantastic
Four was, “Who is the
best actor for the part?” We didn’t go into it saying we wanted to cast a
particular race for any part. Josh had worked with Michael on Chronicle and I’m a big fan of Michael’s, so we
knew he was the best actor for that part. We knew casting an African-American
Human Torch would be news, but I can tell you it’s something that Stan Lee
loves, and I can also tell you that having been on set and seeing Michael bring
him to life, he’s really spectacular.
He’s doing something really cool with the character that I think will become
the iconic Johnny Storm.
You’re listed as a
“Creative Consultant” on Star Wars:
Episode VII. Can you talk about how you assembled the amazing cast?
I can’t talk anything about Star Wars! But J.J. is a master at casting. If you look
at his TV shows, the way he perfectly cast Star Trek and Super 8. He is one
of the great directors at casting, and especially at casting new faces. As a
fan, I’m super excited to see those guys—the ones from the original movies that
changed my life, and the new faces.
You’re also listed as
a writer/producer on a live-action Magic: The
Gathering film. What’s the
vision there?
The vision is
absolutely to create a big fantasy epic like the Lord of the Rings movies,
or Game of Thrones on a slightly bigger scale. I didn’t
grow up playing Magic, but over the last several
years, I’ve learned a whole lot more about it and how deep the universe goes.
We’re talking to different filmmakers and writers now, and should be locking
into somebody in the next few weeks.
You’re also a
writer/producer on Gambit, which
recently cast Channing Tatum in the lead. How did you arrive at him as your
Gambit, and why did you decide to move away from Taylor Kitsch?
Gambit is still in-motion and being figured out. Channing
made it known that it was a character that he loved and would love to play, and
all the people who work on the X-Men movies
are huge fans of his, so the notion of him playing it is exciting. I’m more
fascinated by anti-heroes, and Gambit is one of those. I don’t know why he
wasn’t explored in the original X-Men movies.
Maybe the reason why was because they wanted to focus on Rogue/Bobby or the
platonic Rogue/Wolverine relationship, and maybe there were too many
similarities between Wolverine and Gambit, so in order to make it a
Wolverine-centric franchise they had to cut him loose.
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