It really hurts me to write a post like this. I’ve got high hopes for this movie and I’m going to be pretty bummed out if it really does suck, but there’s really no other explanation for the story I’ve been seeing online all weekend.
McG, the film’s director unloaded on some reporters, including the folks over at Hollywoodreporter.com, about what it was like to work with Christian Bale on the movie. According to several reports he referred to working with him as “Disconcerting” and that the actor forced a rewrite of the film for purely ego-based reasons.
Director McG said he had the disconcerting experience of going to England to convince Bale to play central character Marcus Wright in the man vs. machines film, only to have Bale tell the director he wanted to play Connor instead.
McG told reporters that the script was a “moving target” that became a film making challenge, and that he worked day and night with Bale, who starred last year in box office smash “The Dark Knight,” talking about how to work Connor into the movie.
“A lot of the work was integrating (Connor) into scenes … and having that feel integral and sensible, as opposed to grafted on just because there was a star in the part,” John Brancato, a screenwriter on the film, told reporters.
I get that this might have actually happened and I get that McG might be pissed about it, but what I don’t get is why you would announce this to reporters a month before the film unless you were covering your ass. Does McG hate how the movie came out so much that he is trying to distance himself from the script and lay out an alibi and scapegoat in case the public rejects the movie? I really hope not as that would not only be douchetastically unprofessional, but it would mean that the movie I’ve been looking forward to for months is probably a giant crap fest.