Donner Spills the X-Beans

 
Interview: Lauren Shuler Donner

from CHUD

Lauren Shuler Donner is a busy woman, but she took some time out of her day to get on the phone with me to talk about what's going on in her neck of the woods, which is currently full of geek-friendly projects like Constantine and X3.

First things first - I recorded this interview on my iPod, using my new iTalk extension, and with my cell phone on speaker. What that means is that the first minute or two of the interview is untranscriptable, so I'll break down for you what Lauren said, quoting where I can:

- On Joss Whedon: "I'm a huge fan of Joss'."
- On why Joss won't be directing X3: "Nothing is certain yet."
- On the plot of X3: "It will follow the Dark Phoenix thread, with new storylines and characters." She wouldn't give anything away beyond that.

Q: Reviews from test screenings of Constantine have been popping up online this week. As a producer does this annoy you?
Donner: It’s part of the process. We hold these screenings to get feedback. The only thing is that the movie isn’t done yet, so I hope people give it a chance. I think it’s a great film, and it’s different, in the way that The Matrix was very different. I have 100% belief in Constantine, as does Warner Bros.

Q: How much attention do you pay to the fan community online? How important is that feedback to you?
Donner: It’s enormously important. Because of my experience on X-Men I pay a lot of attention to them. In fact, when we were releasing things from the movie, from Constantine and X2, I always like to release them to the internet first, because they’re our fan base and they’re very, very important to us. We pay attention, believe me.

The problem becomes like on the first X-Men trying to second guess the fans. It comes down to you have to know what you believe in, know there are elements the fans are looking for, try to make sure those elements are incorporated and have the liberty to make a movie. They’re our most important audience.

Q: The folks behind Spider-Man have announced that they want the third one to be the final one, they want to wrap up the whole story. Would you want to do something like that with the X-Men films, or do you see life beyond X3?
Donner: I don’t know. X-Men is different than Spider-Man because you have so many characters, and you have so many different stories. You could go off and do "Days of Future Past." You could do Hellfire Club. There’s so much stuff you can do. We are making a separate Wolverine movie.

Q: Right, with David Benioff scripting.
Donner: Right. It’s different with Spider-Man because that has the one character, but X-Men has so many characters you could take it longer, just as long as the movies have integrity and you’re being honest to the fans and you’re being honest to the characters. If you can still spin a good story, like Star Trek, if you can still go and make good movies, four, five or six – fine, I’m not against it. Just as long as we’re never retreading and making old news. As long as we’re always being fresh and there are great stories to mine – as long as the comics go on the movies can go on.

Q: So about the Wolverine movie – what angle are you taking? A lot of fans are excited about the idea of incorporating the Asian adventures of Logan, plenty of ninjas.
Donner: The plan is to do more of an origin story for Wolverine. The first one. If that’s successful, my deepest desire – I’m not reflecting Fox but you never know – my deepest desire is after the origin story, which David has worked out beautifully, it’s really good – if that works, the second one could be the Mariko, ninja story.

Q: You really know your stuff!
Donner: That whole Mariko love story is phenomenal because he gets down to his basest self and it’s so cool. That’s a great storyline. But I think you have to do the origin first to educate the broader audience, and once you’ve done that and they know his history and what really happened to Logan then you can move on. You can go on to Mariko and her father and that stuff.

Q: Hugh Jackman is signed on to that or are you willing to go with another Wolverine?
Donner: No! No! I would never go with a different Wolverine. In fact, we met, Benioff and Hugh and I, and Benioff told him the story and Hugh loved it. Hugh’s on board. Hugh knows the whole samurai story. I gave him those comics, he read those, so in the future he’s onboard with those also.