Not sure which of these stories is a bigger deal, but while Bryan Singer seems to want to cement his place in Hollywood as the filmmaker of choice for comic book superhero films while Joe Carnahan doesn’t seem to realize that he already owes his career to Tom Cruise so he’s not allowed to have “creative differences.”
McG left, in comes Singer to direct the new Superman movie. I’ve got to say, even though I agreed with Stephen of Tagline that Warner Bros. should just give up on reviving the Superman franchise, I’m a bit more interested than he is with the possibilities now that Singer is involved. Next to the Spider-Man films, X-Men and X2 are possibly the best comic book adaptations made. If Singer can do the same thing for Superman, it may be worth it. He’s certainly a better choice than McG, and chances are, with the success of X-Men behind him, Warners may even let him do his thing with a little less studio involvement, i.e., fuck-ups.
As for Carnahan, his career got a bigtime shot of adrenaline when Narc came out at the end of 2002. For those of you who don’t know the story, Narc was making the Hollywood rounds, but nobody was willing to distribute the film. Tom Cruise got a copy of the tape and fell in love with it. He and his partner, Paula Wagner, agreed to lend their names to the credit as Executive Producers. Cruise-Wagner Productions has a deal with Paramount; they got Paramount to agree to a limited release platform, but more importantly, Carnahan was suddenly a popular name around Hollywood as a creative, visionary and exciting young director. Narc was an industry hit, which is even more important than being a commercial hit. (I’m not criticizing the film; it’s a very strong movie, with a phenomenal performance by Ray Liotta.)
So what does Cruise do? He hires Carnahan to direct the next installment of Mission: Impossible which is scheduled to start shooting soon for release as Paramount’s big tentpole next summer. After established directors like Brian De Palma on the first film and John Woo on the second, Carnahan had to look like a bit of a risk, but a potentially great one that could add some new vitality to the franchise. Whoops! Now it seems that “Joe Carnahan has dropped out of the director’s seat because of ‘creative differences.'” I guess Narc was just a good first impression, but when Tommy started getting to work with Joe directly, things didn’t work out to well. That, or Carnahan refused to convert to Scientology. Either way, I’m sure that would be enough for a firing, even if it’s not reported that way.
Where do they go now? Hmmm … I hear McG is available.
Out of Focus 