The other day Eric brought tears to our eyes with the news that HITMAN was being drastically watered down. Twitch had reported that Xavier Gens was taken off the project and it was given to Nicolas De Toth, who was given the task to make the film less violent.
Well folks, I’ve got some great news for you! Apparently Fox got in touch with Ropes of Silicon and shouted shenanigans!
Director Xavier Gens is still working on [Hitman]. The film still has intense action and will definitely be rated “R”. Nicholas De Toth is an editor who has been hired to do some consulting. He is not THE editor(s). By the way – AVP-R will also be a hard “R” a month after Hitman. It’s not fair to say that Fox waters down/softens all their films for PG-13 ratings…
Like music to my bloody-violent-action-loving ears. Seriously, this is great news. A watered down HITMAN would be unbearable, not to mention unconceivable. I’m a huge fan of the video games, so I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while and was shattered by Eric’s news. But that can all be laid to rest.
As you can imagine, we are upset to see this inaccuracy about the rating be spread around. We really are putting out an “R” rated movie, which as you may know really limits us/challenges us in alot of ways in our marketing. [Fox] knows that to capture Agent 47’s essence, this film needs to be an “R”.
So there you have it, nothing to worry about. Within the next 3 months we have two very violent and bloody films from Fox to look forward to. For now, the world is as it should be. Now I’ve been a fan of Timothy Olyphant since SCREAM 2, but I just couldn’t picture him in this role at first. But the closer we get to the date and the more advertising I’m seeing, the more sold I am. HITMAN is, of course, based on the hit video games. It centers on a heartless assassin named Agent 47 who gets tied up in a political conspiracy, which in turn causes him to flee across Eastern Europe as the Russian military as well as Interpol track him down. Intense stuff. So you can see where there’s going to be lots and lots of good-ol guns and blood violence! The film is directed by Xavier Gens and written by Skip Woods. It stars Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko (below), Robert Knepper, and Ulrich Thomsen. It hits theaters November 21, 2007, just two days after my birthday. Let’s hope it’s one hell of a birthday present. The official website can be found over here.