Could “Jonah Hex” be the next “The Wolfman”? News on the troubled production has either been non-existent or, when news has slipped out, it hasn’t been good.
First, way back in November 2008, there was the dropping out of the film’s original screenwriters and would-be directors, the “Crank” team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. Citing creative differences they bailed and the bizzarro world choice of Jimmy Hayward (“Horton Hears a Who!?”). It seemed the gamble of giving an director with a background in animation his first live action gig didn’t pay off as Warner Bros., not pleased with first cut, brought in Francis Lawrence as a “consultant” on reshoots earlier this year. And now, most baffling of all, the mysterious absence of trailer for a tentpole film coming out in a mere two months. Speaking with New York magazine Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds, who has been working on the film score throughout the project’s various incarnations, doesn’t paint a particularly optimistic picture.
“What I’ve seen so far doesn’t seem to be finished to me,” said Hinds. “I’d heard a little rumor: ‘This shit ain’t gonna be ready.’ But then again, Warner Bros. is such a fucking bastard. They’re like, ‘The shit comes out on the day it’s supposed to.’ But what do I know?” While Hinds looks like he’s pretty much guaranteed that Warner Bros. won’t let him near a film project again, he has a reason to be frustrated. Mastodon first worked with composer John Powell, who was co-scoring the film, but as the production dragged on, his commitment to other projects forced him to leave and he was replaced by Marco Beltrami. With Mastodon embarking on tour, it made writing music for the film a bit of a clusterfuck: “And there was no way [Beltrami] could connect with me: They brought all the new scenes to us, but I was on tour this entire time, so I had no time to preconceive what I wanted the movie to sound like. Being so busy…it’s hard to be creative when you’re going through the same motions every day [onstage].”
While Warner Bros. keeps insisting that nothing is wrong and that a trailer for the film will arrive in front of “A Nightmare On Elm Street” on April 30th and it will still be released on June 18th, the obvious signs say otherwise. The official website is still just the poster and synopsis — no production stills, no videos and not even cast and crew information. The last two updates on the official Facebook page were in July and December 2009. There are only two scenarios that can play out from here: A) Warner Bros. knows they have a dud on their hands are going to dump it into theaters with little promo or much more likely B) the film still needs a lot of work and the release date will inevitably be bumped. –Eric T. Voigt