A new interview with Brett Ratner at MTV.com is incredibly revealing, and includes the confirmation that X-Men: The Last Stand is the last film for the team, that Ratner claims the shitty pictures we have seen hitting the web recently were taken before he got on the film (anyone else think Matthew Vaughn is going to have Vinnie Jones curb this hack?), and that fans complaining about the movie online have nothing to do with their lives. Well, that last part is probably true.
"Well, it seems to be the last of the series," Ratner told MTV.com. "We wanted to make sure the audiences knew that this was a trilogy. Even though they weren’t made together like ‘Lord of the Rings,’ this is really closure for the X-Men series. … This is the last stand for sure." A Fox spokesperson confirmed this (not to me. Fox seems to have me on their perpetual shit list), but it’s mentioned that there are still Wolverine and Magneto spin-offs planned.
As for the totally crappy images that some deluded Ratner partisans have actually defended on our message boards: "Those photos were [taken] before I even started shooting," Ratner explained. "They were done in the testing process, so those photos are very, very old.”
"I think whenever you’re on the Internet and you have nothing to do and you’re a fan, you become very anxious to get the information, but you have to consider the source," he continued, saying that such leaks undermine his efforts. "If it’s sent out by [the studio], then you know it’s official, but if it’s put up on the Internet by someone who stole something illegally, then I think you should first consider what you’re looking at."
Finally, Ratner admits what I think we’ve all kind of gathered – Bryan Singer is “better at” the X-Men than he is, and what he really wants to do is make a Superman movie. The whole thing sort of adds up to a weird hatefuck in my eyes – like Ratner went and screwed Singer’s ex because he stole the girl Ratner wanted to bring to the prom (remember that Ratner was going to direct Superman for a heart-stopping moment).
Now it’s just a waiting game to see how this thing turns out. Last year I was pretty down on the Fantastic Four movie (one of the reasons I am hated by Fox), but I think it turned out better than expected. Maybe all this bad publicity on X3 will lower our expectations enough to actually enjoy the film.