FableForge's Foundlings #20: Lexi Alexander and the PUNISHER

FableForge — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:47:09 +0000

This is not really a foundling, but rather a combination of several things I ran into today.

First, just so that we're on the same page, take a whiff of this:

Alright. So. More people are killed in these 2 minutes, than in the entirety of Rambo IV, and just as gorily if not more. Now that has been established, observe the following rumor courtesy of the always-on-the-scoop, the excellent Latino Review:

Latino Review wrote:

Following up on an earlier article,
one of my contacts deep within the bowels of Hollywood and close to the
Punisher: War Zone project (source will not be named. Sorry!) told me
today that the big fight over the Punisher project is Lionsgate wants a
PG-13 cut to be released.

We already know that Lexi Alexander has allegedly been fired from the film. Her own website
doesn't even mention anything about the Punisher movie anymore. You
would think that even if she were a consultant on the project, she'd be
mentioning this huge comic book movie coming out later this year, but
that isn't the case.

So, there you have it. A Pg-13 movie. The Punisher.

... right.

Latino Review goes on to rightly assume that THE DARK KNIGHT may have sold some Lions Gate people into thinking PG-13 is achievable with comic book characters, but look, there's no blood in THE DARK KNIGHT. Really, there isn't. The joker waves his knife all around a lot of people's faces, but he never actually cuts anybody. And most important of all, the Punisher is not Batman. The Punisher kills people. It's What He Does. For all the excessive blood and testosterone the trailer drips off, that's who the character is. I would never EVER take my kids to see the Punisher, even if its given a PG-13 rating. But here we arrive to the second part of this post, Lexi Alexander. I read some of her bio off Wikipedia and her own page:

Lexi is a German immigrant who started as a martial artist, and came to the City of Angels working as a stunt girl. In 2003, she shot a short film that was so good, she got nominated for an Oscar for it, and that's how she got a career as a movie director. She directed this film, "The Punisher: War Zone". And now the rumor is, that by putting her foot down to keep it an R-Rating, she got canned at Lions Gate. Yup, the studio can fire a director out of her own movie, in post.

And I can't help but feel a range of negative emotions about this. Hers was pretty much a Cinderella story, and obviously reason is on her side, but nevertheless she still gets thrown out to the curb again. Surely, she'll stand back up and find work elsewhere (she's an Oscar nominated Martial Artist!) but it still stings that "the dream" was happening for someone, and it came to such sudden crash. Another Hollywood story, I suppose. And its sad that the film will absolutely bomb as a PG-13 silliness, and people won't know or care enough to fairly apportion the blame.

That, and other news about Frank Miller's THE SPIRIT (another Lion's Gate) bombing at Comicon, makes me fear that the boom-period for comics in film maybe has peaked. Which would be bad news for me. We'll see, I suppose, crossing my fingers.

The trailer doesn't give me a lot of hope:

Man, its dangerous out there. Fast learners, quick adapters.

punisher

FableForge's Foundlings #20: Lexi Alexander and the PUNISHER