Argh! Our reeling heads!
Punisher: War Zone looks like it might still be in one piece, despite evidence to the contrary. At San Diego Comic Con this year, footage debuted that showed a lot of R-Rated headshots cut to an abrasively bad heavy metal soundtrack (HERE). It might not be perfect, but it was violent, which the first Punisher movie was not.
Next step in weirdness, we heard that fairly-green director Lexi Alexander was taken off the film, given a non-disclosure agreement and told that Lionsgate was going to take the composer off the project and replace the entire War Zone soundtrack with aforementioned abrasive metal.
Final step towards total suckage? Last week’s rumor that Lionsgate was going to try and cut the movie’s violence down to PG-13, making all the exploding heads and chairs-in-eyes that started this whole mess completely moot.
Now, and here is where we take a sudden left-turn into weirdsville, we’re hearing that everything that happened after the footage might be totally false.
Steve Gainer, the film’s cinematographer, has taken to the Raw Studios message board and posted and update that shoots everything we thought we knew down:
Holy smokes, I go away and shoot some kids stuff for Disney, and the whole world is a different color when I return. Again I appear here to dispel rumors. Please believe:
Lexi is not off the film
Lexi is still involved in the edit process
The film is not (nor could it ever be) PG-13
Today I saw a cut that ran 91 minutes
Lexi did in fact get married
Lexi is an incredibly talented director, and this film kicks major ass, as will be proven when it is released IN THEATRES DECEMBER 5th
The film is most certainly not all exploding heads, but will reveal a great deal of Franks personna and pain
This film has been difficult from the begining, from a bitter Canadian winter, to endless nights, to rampant sickness, Lexi has fought to make a killer Punisher film for fans and non fans alike.
Initially we were to release in September, but for whatever reason (not the quality of the film or edit IMHO) it was decided to release in December. That extra time has given everyone a chance to put their two cents worth in, but rest assured, Lexi is still stearing the boat, and she is a great captain.
When I hear vicious unfounded troll rumors like the “film was unwatchable” or “a total mess” it makes my blood boil. I want to punish the corrupt. People sit on their fat asses trolling the internet, people that have never even looked through a motion picture camera, and make judgements on a work of art that they’ve never seen, it’s like saying a baby will be ugly before it is born, I can’t freaking wait for this film to come out and prove the nay-sayers wrong.
Sorry for the rant, I just love something wonderful you have yet to see
Our first reaction is skepticism, as in: Why is Lionsgate not trying to pull its movie out of bad-buzzville, why is the cinematographer doing it message board by message board.
Our second reaction is one of general relaxation. We don’t know if Punisher: War Zone is going to be good. It’s be a safe bet to put it at the bottom of the Marvel pile this year. But, under no circumstances should a movie be suddenly taken away from its director and drastically re-cut just to try and squeeze more money out of it.
If we wanted to see studio-made crap fail, all we’d have to do is go see Clone Wars or some such bull. we’d rather see a young directress shoot for the stars and fall short, because that at least has merit.
