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Ratner Says he Kept X-MEN Alive
It's kind of an oldish interview, but last month the ever-colorful director Brett Ratner addressed fan criticism of his efforts on 'X-Men: The Last Stand'. In speaking with Starpulse, Ratner said that comic fans consider him the Anti-Christ in spite of the fact that he kept the mutant franchise alive. Check it out:You mentioned "X-Men." Is the comic book fan the hardest demographic to please? If you look at the numbers: Bryan Singer's "X-Men" made $157 Million, "X-Men United" made $214 million and your "X-Men: The Last Stand" made $234 million. Yet that group wasn't particularly happy.Absolutely. Bryan Singer gave me the best advice when I was doing "X-Men 3," Bryan is a really good friend of mine. Bryan said, "Whatever you do, do not read the Internet." I'm like, "Why?" He's like, "First of all, they hated on me the whole time I was making 'X-Men' and 'X-Men 2.' They said, 'Gambit should have been the star of the movie'" They're such rabidness fans, they're so passionate about their comic book characters that they think that their favorite character should be the star of the movie. Someone might be passionate about Iceman being the star. So, you can't win. Everyone's going to have their own so just stay away from their opinion and do what you feel's best.I kind of made rules for myself. I said to the writers -- Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg -- I only want to put scenes in this movie that exist from actual comic books. That way I protect myself. Even though I protect myself they're still saying, "Why the f*ck did [he] kill Professor X?"
He died in five different comic books! People are crazy. "Brett Ratner killed Professor X! How dare he do that!" He died in five different comic books and came back!Then people weren't happy with Bryan Singer when he went on to "Superman Returns."You can't make these people happy. I'm kind of the Anti-Christ to these comic book geeks. Every single person that wrote shit went to see that movie multiple times because a movie doesn't gross $200 something million unless people go to see it more than once.
Every single person who said, "I'm never seeing that movie," they were the first ones there.What is it then? Are you polarizing?You know what it is. That's their whole life, they have nothing more to do than to worry. What are they concerned about? It's out of the filmmaker's hands. A film is a collaborative effort. How's a person sitting at home going to worry about how a movie is going to turn out to be? I just know one thing: Mine outgrossed the other two by far. Mine was the one that made the most narrative sense. And I'm not knocking Bryan's movie but he just does a certain thing; Bryan uses his brain and I use my eye and my instincts more. It's a whole different approach to making a movie. I'm not saying my movie wasn't smart; I just wasn't intellectualizing it. I was just looking at it as pure entertainment value which is what it was.When I was a kid and used to watch that cartoon it was just fun. It wasn't a deeper meaning for me when I watched the cartoon as a kid. I didn't read the comic books but it doesn't matter, the cartoon is the same f*cking thing.The most ridiculous statement I've read is -- and of course I looked at the Internet after the movie came out -- that I buried the franchise. If I buried the franchise how the f*ck did they make a "Wolverine"? I mean, that's ridiculous. And they're making three other f*cking "X-Men" movies. Mine kept the franchise alive!
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