I’ll be the first person to stand up and defend Wolverine: Origins as a solidly entertaining movie with almost zero nutritional value. The fact is, that after X-Men: The Last Stand, the last thing I wanted was a movie that tried to get all philosophical with its mutant metaphor and instead presented its main characters as amoral hypocrites. I was perfectly ready for what Wolverine turned out to be: Hugh Jackman, a series of awkward celebrity cameos, and a See’s Candy assortment of gleefully wire-fu fight scenes strung along on the thinnest of plots like brightly colored beads on a wire.
But I’d be perfectly willing to trade Wolverine: Origins for a Kitty Pryde movie from all of the people who brought us Juno, because oh my gosh what would that movie even be like?
According to Jason Reitman, director of Juno himself, 20th Century Fox approached him about the idea sometime during or after the production of Juno. Now, I don’t want to propose that Reitman, writer Diablo Cody, and Ellen Page are the first things that come to mind when I think of a good team to make a superhero movie. But I want it on the record that if they were to make a Kitty Pryde movie, I’d have to go see it. I mean, just to see what the heck happened! Also, Lockheed.
Unfortunately, Wolverine: Origins was not exactly a critical darling (nor should it be, though I’d still rather watch it than XM:TLS), and two reviled X-Men movies in a row was enough for Fox to put the whole franchise on notice for as long as possible. That is, until its franchise rights were about to expire and it put X-Men: First Class on the fast track in order to keep the rights reverting to Marvel and therefore Disney. Ellen Page will be back as Kitty Pryde for X-Men: Days of Future Past, though its anyone’s guess as to how big her role will be, considering that James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart don’t even share scenes together.
In the meantime, I’ll sit here and imagine the kooky, down-to-earth, wise-cracking Kitty Pryde movie that completely broke with the tone of the other X-Men movies movie that exists somewhere in a parallel universe.
