Jonah Hex (2010) - Expectations

Right now it’s November, 2009 and early info, teaser trailers and IMDb update should start pouring in about the upcoming summer list of big budget blockbusters. But there is one movie that I’m keeping an eye out for and am extremely excited about. That movie is Jonah Hex, you might me asking yourself who’s Jonah Hex? Well to fill you in Jonah Hex is a character in the DC Universe who first made his appearance in DC Comics “All-Star Western #10 volume two” The character quickly gained enough popularity within DC and was given his own comic in 1977 written by Michael Fleisher. Jonah was a western anti-hero who at a young age was sold into slavery by his father to the Apache. After saving the Chief from a mountain lion he was made an honorary member of the tribe. Jonah was later betrayed by the chief’s jealous son who challenged Jonah to a sacred tomahawk battle, but the chief’s son sabotaged Jonah’s tomahawk forcing him to use a knife in self defense, the Tribe thought this was disrespectful and gave Jonah the mark of the demon by pressing a searing hot tomahawk against his face, leaving him with the famous scar on the left side of his face. From there on out Jonah Hex became a bounty hunter and faced many antagonist’s, most notably Quentin Turnbull.

I personally think that Jonah Hex is one of the most under rated characters in the DC Universe. If I could decide who from DC would get a film adaptation next I would have to pick Jonah Hex. Well I’m getting my wish seeing how an adaptation has been in the works for a while with information slowly been released, it has been confirmed that the movie is set for a release date of June 18th, 2010.

The plot: Not that much info has been released about the plot and this is all we have gotten from IMDb yet. “In the Wild West, a scarred bounty hunter tracks a voodoo practitioner bent on liberating the South by raising an army of the undead.”
From this info I’m going to guess that the first live action Jonah Hex movie is going to be based around “Jonah Hex’s Two Gun Mojo (#1-5 1993)" which had many supernatural elements including raising the dead. So I am going to estimate that the first half of the film will be the origin story of Jonah and character development and the second half will be Jonah stopping an army of the undead from liberating the south. As a casual fan of Jonah Hex, I like this idea of having it based around the supernatural elements and including Zombies because that will bring in an entire audience of zombie fans. A lot of people aren’t aware of this character yet so hopefully zombies will make the movie more successful.

The Director: “Jimmy Hayward”
His resume only includes Horton Hears a Who! (2008). This is either really good or really bad seeing how this guy only has a background of directing a kids film I would say this is bad, but the movie he directed had really high production value and since he is a lesser known director he should have a lot of free reign to do what ever he wants with the movie. Despite his background of a kid’s movies this sounds like a good choice for a director.

The Writer(s): “Mark Neveldine” and “Brian Taylor”
The writing duo’s resume includes Crank (2006), Pathology (2008), Crank: High Voltage (2009) and Gamer (2009). Words can’t describe how perfect these two writers are for Jonah Hex. It just fits right in with the disturbing feel of Crank and especially Crank: High Voltage. The only thing I can hope for is that they pull off a more serious darker story than Crank 1-2 or Gamer and there is no excuse for ridiculous dialogue either.

The Cast:
Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex – When I first read that Josh Brolin was cast as Jonah I was a little Biased, don’t get me wrong Josh Brolin is one of my favorite actors. It’s just I thought it didn’t fit, but the more I think about it I seem to like this choice more and more. Josh seems to get really into character and pull off the role. Remember “W.”
Megan Fox as Leila – Alright I ogle Megan Fox more than any guy you know combined so any movie she is in I am going to see right away and if there is anything I like about the movie I will probably buy the dvd. I don’t know how anyone can decide if she is a bad actress yet because she hasn’t actually been told to do anything related to acting. I bet at the script readings for “Transformers” Michael Bay just had Megan try standing in different poses why everyone practiced their lines. So hopefully this guy is an acting director so we can see if Megan has any acting talent.
John Malkovich as Quentin Turnbull – Throughout the Jonah Hex comics Quentin was after revenge since Jonah killed his son in the Civil War. I personally think this is great casting and it will be cool to see John Malkovich trying to kill Josh Brolin.
Michael Fassbender as Burke – I have never seen this guy in a movie before with the exception of 300. Michael played “Stelios” who was most memorable for the line “Then we will fight in the shade.” In Jonah Hex he will play the lead henchman for Turnbull which is going to be pretty cool, in a lot of movies the lead villain always has a main henchmen who does a lot of the work. Most notably “Batman (1989)” the joker picked one man above all his other henchmen. So I expect that in Jonah Hex Burke will have more screen time than Turnbull.

Overall:
I am extremely excited about this one, this isn’t going to have the same effect as many summer blockbusters. Since this movie has to be at the least rated “R”, I expect it to make around 40-50 million at the box office total. Only time will tell if this adaptation is going to work, I remember hearing Josh Brolin during the "Comic Con 09" coverage say that the film has a budget of around 30 million. This is good because the movie will rely on characters and story instead of constant action and effects thrown in because they can. The film will hopefully achieve some respect beyond the popcorn aspect, I don’t know maybe the movie will completely fail and disappoint everyone. I just have to wait but for now I have really high expectations. If your not interested yet, check out this awesome poster…