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From Empireonline.co.uk

Joss Whedon

X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

Friday 1 October 2004, by Webmaster

X-Men 3 has a writer! .... Rather, it’s Simon Kinberg!!!

When Bryan Singer decided to throw his chips in with Superman, and leave the X-Men franchise recently, there were those who were worried about the state of X-Men 3.

After all, Singer took his writers, Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty, with him, while Fox had not closed any deals for any of the principal actors - Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen et al - to return. The future looked about as bleak as Days of Future Past (Geek alert!)

But, given that the the X-movies have grossed almost a billion dollars worldwide, theatrically, Fox and Marvel were never going to let the series die. And so it was announced today that the merry mutants have a new writer - Simon Kinberg.

Simon Who? Well, it’s certainly not the Joss Whedon appointment that many fanboys had been trumpeting - hardly surprising, though, as the Buffymeister is busy on his pet project, Serenity (and, given that, according to a very good source, he wrote that Godawful ‘Do you know what happens to a Toad when it’s hit by lightning?’ line in the original, it might be a blessing in disguise). But nor is it a big-name writer.

Yet Kinberg is quietly making a name for himself in Hollywood - and with Fox and Marvel especially. He’s already carried out rewrites on both Elektra and Fantastic Four, has written xXx: State of the Union for Sony, and is a huge comic book fan.


10 Forum messages

  • > X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

    1 October 2004 23:21, by Sandman

    oh god if this is true X-Men 3 just got crappy....I looked on IMDB for what he has/is doing

    "Worked on numerous production rewrites, including Charlies Angels II: Full Throttle, Catwoman, Fantastic Four and Elektra."

    I’m not sure about the last two but the last time I checked Charlies Angels II and Catwoman sucked. He’s also sceduled as a writer for XXX 2 which from the details I’ve seen will suck also...Whedon got screwed.

  • > X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

    2 October 2004 00:20, by Anonymous
    buuuuuu....

  • > X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

    2 October 2004 00:43, by sakis-athens
    I’m dissapointed...Joss Whedon is the only comic-writer-director that could bring in life the X-MEN3 movie and hit a score...who else better will bring great ideas but the creator of cool super-heros buffy-angel? I dont know...I was happy when I’ve heard that Joss was going to write X-MEN...he is allready writing excallent with the x-men comics...anyway...whatever...And havent sighn the major stars yet? what?...its gonna be like batman and james bond changing actors?...thats stupid!...and I dont think also Holly Berry to do Storm either after the catwoman movie...what?..she is gonna be and storm and catwoman?..she cant convice me!!!...we’ll see....

  • > X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

    2 October 2004 01:29, by Anonymous
    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! They’re giving it to the guy that wrote xXx?!?!?!?! Gah....who cares if Joss wrote that crappy line, he’s perfect for the job.........I hope this isn’t true.....I thought Joss was already confirmed? Bleh. Maybe he’s just directing; but that seems a bit odd for him.........

  • > X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

    2 October 2004 19:17, by Anonymous
    I doubt that’s why SMG left Buffy. True, the quality of Buffy declined in seasons 6 and 7, but it’s obvious from interviews that SMG wants to distance herself from Buffy. I’m sure she made up her mind to leave way back in Season 5.

  • > X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

    3 October 2004 04:45, by Anonymous
    yeah, the only line that was fully kept in the script, NOT changed, was the whole, Cyclops: prove it’s you, Wolverine: you’re a dick, Cyclops: ok thing, which is one of the few moments i remember from the movie. it was brilliant, in my opinion, and im sure his version of the whole "toad hit by lightning" thing was a lot better than it is now.

  • > X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

    3 October 2004 11:02, by Judas

    Whoever wrote that thiswas some kind of karmic reward for "abandoning" Buffy is a moron.

    Firefly got cancelled because it was in a bad time slot and Fox showed the episodes out of order.

    Angel got cancelled when it was in its prime because the WB wanted to do their own vamp show (which they then abandoned anyhow)

    Stop crying about Buffy and try to educate yourself before opening your hole next time. Moron.

  • > X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

    3 October 2004 17:19, by Anonymous

    I love Joss and all, but that toad line,read in ANYWAY, just plain sucked. You couldnt read that line in a good way. You could have said "what happens to a toad when its hit by lighting? it croaks." But even as a deadpan joke, that line thats in there is still pretty cringeworthy. That said though, although thats probably widely known as one of the worst lines in movie history, the cyclops being a dick line was a great one liner. Also he wanted to introduce the danger room right away. Singer disagreed, and so do I, because in the first movie you have to set up the universe before you go too deep in the mythology. Im really surprised that Joss didnt realise it as hes one of the finest writers around.

    See, I love Joss whedon, but when things tend to go wrong, he does pass the buck a little and blame everyone else. He did it with alien resurrection too (any of you who have read the original script can tell that its more or less exactly the same thing that ended up on screen).

    Now Im probably coming off as anti Joss, but I am so not. I love the guy, he’s a genius, I love his shows....but I tend to feel that, and this applies to everyone, when something we do fails creativly or whatever, we have to take personal responsibility and accept what we could have done to make it better, instead of blaming it on everyone and everything else.

  • > X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

    4 October 2004 06:55, by BLahblAH
    Why is everyone having a bitch about how Joss shouldn’t write this movie cause of one bad line in the original movie. ONE LINE!! Boo fricken hoo!! Think of the seven years of Buffy or four years of Angel, and compare it to ONE line, which really didn’t bother me that much anyway, and then think about how stupid you sound. "Oh no, one line in this movie was crap, therefore anything Joss is involved in is crap. Don’t ever let him write a movie again"

  • > X-Men 3 Has A Writer... And It’s Not Joss Whedon

    8 October 2004 00:18, by Anonymous
    Wtf is this ’Joss the Traitor’ thing? SMG quit Buffy, and Firefly and Angel were both cancelled. He never left BtVS; he was involved with multiple projects around s6, but so what? That’s not ’abandoning’ the show. He still had plenty to do with it and actually got more involved in s7. So stop critisizing him for it. You know we’d all follow him to the end of the earth and back again.