Now this is interesting. My friend and former Movie Blog writer Todd over at Twitch just emailed me about this developing story that is a bit shocking to say the least.
Apparently, Hitman (the upcoming video game adaptation) director Xavier Gens has had the movie yanked away from him by the studio at the last minute because the studio doesn’t like the amount of blood and violence in the cut of the film he turned in.
After being hired to shoot an adaptation of the ultra-violent video game Gens took Asian action films such as The Killer and A Bittersweet Life as his starting point and turned in an explicitly violent, very bloody cut of the film that apparently included a number of head shots and extreme gore moments that would have guaranteed the film a hard R rating. Which really shouldn’t have been any sort of surprise if the studio execs had been paying any attention at all – it’s not like they wouldn’t have seen the dailies or effects work ahead of time – but apparently after seeing Gens’ cut of the film the studio removed him from the project and placed Nicolas De Toth in control of a new edit of the film. Who’s De Toth? He’s the man behind the edit of Live Free Or Die Hard, a job he was hired for specifically to turn in an entirely bloodless version of the film and word is that this is his task with Hit Man as well.
So they’ve brought in the guy who edited Die Hard 4 into a basically bloodless movie (and to be fair, the guy did an amazing job… Die Hard 4 turned out to be one hell of a fun movie even without the blood and as a PG-13 film) to “clean up” Hitman. Ok, now let me try to look at this from both sides for a second.
ON THE PRO SIDE OF THIS MOVE
It’s a video game movie folks… a lot of the prime demographic for the people they’re aiming to get into the theaters to buy tickets for this are going to be under 18. From a business standpoint it makes sense that Fox would want a PG-13 film… the movie was basically made in the first place to attract that demographic, so wanting to avoid an “R” is common sense really.
A movie is not a directors baby… it’s the producers baby, so hell, Fox has ever right to do whatever the hell they want with Hitman. It’s their movie, not Gens.
Who cares… it’s a video game movie and therefore is going to suck regardless if it’s an R or a PG.
ON THE WTF SIDE OF THIS MOVE
Did the Fox guys not approve the script? Did they not see the dailies that were being turned in? Did they not have 3 reps on set at all times as the film was being shot? Did they not already clearly lay out with Gens what sort of film they were aiming for and that they did or did not want it to come in at PG-13? HOW ON EARTH DID THE CUT GENS TURNED IN SURPRISE THEM?!?!?
The only way this makes ANY sense to me whatsoever is that Fox MUST have been on board with the idea of an R rated Hitman from the start, and have just now changed their minds. Otherwise they’re totally incompetent (I think Fox is many thing… but I don’t think they’re incompetent)
Die Hard 4 (to my surprise) proved you can have a violent, action packed and exciting film without it needing to be rated “R”, and on that level I don’t think Hitman will suffer too much in the hands of a skilled and talented editor. Having said that… why was Fox’s expectation for Hitman CLEARLY communicated to Gens while this thing was being shot? Why were concerns not raised (or where they?) during filming? Why now suddenly change their minds? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what comes out.
