Apparently there was no lesson learned from Spider-Man 3. I guess all the criticisms of that movie’s having too many characters didn’t exactly balance negatively enough against its worldwide gross of nearly $900 million. So, prepare for the possibility that other comic book adaptations will make the same attempt for box office gold by saturating their plots with familiar and highly demanded heroes and villains. This week the geek circles have been all abuzz about the all-star casting for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which has now been confirmed by the trades and so far includes Taylor Kitsch as Gambit, Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am as John Wraith/Kestrel, Liev Schrieber as Victor Creed/Sabretooth (I can’t wait to see Schrieber with blond muttonchops), Danny Huston as Col. William Stryker and Lynn Collins as Silver Fox. Also, there’s rumor that the Blob will show up in the film, too.
Some of these characters will only be showing up for minor appearances, and it’s certainly appropriate to have an X-Men spin-off that features a whole slew of characters, but it still seems like an overload. Even the last X-Men movie felt too packed with supporting mutants. As a veteran reader of the comics, I should be as overjoyed as the rest of the fanboys, but I must point out that when I would pick up a copy of Wolverine’s solo title(s), I would do so with the expectation that the loner-by-nature hero would actually be on a solo mission — or maybe on occasion would have no more than a teen-girl sidekick. I understand that this is the origin story, and most of these casted characters figure into that plot (where’s Maverick?), but the additions of Deadpool, Gambit and the Blob, no matter how long they’re on screen, seems to be a desperate attempt at pleasing the fanbase. Doesn’t Fox realize that we’ll all be showing up even if its just Hugh Jackman and a single villain (my choice would have been Omega Red).
