Captain America director Joe Johnston admits he took The Wolfman job with an eye on his bank balance, and describes the production as “a leaky, rudderless ship” with “too many under-qualified cooks in the kitchen”...
Director Joe Johnston is currently hard at work finishing up The First Avenger: Captain America. Yet, in an interview over at Comic Book Movie, he's been looking back at the underwhelming movie of The Wolfman that appeared around this time last year.
The Wolfman was, of course, a troubled production. Originally, Mark Romanek was set to direct, before departing the project and ultimately heading off to make Oscar-possibility Never Let Me Go instead. And thus, Joe Johnston came in at the last minute to steer the film.
He told Comic Book Movie, "I had three weeks of prep on Wolfman, a ridiculously inadequate amount of time to try to bring together the fractured and scattered pieces of the production. I had taken the job mostly because I had a cash flow problem, the only time in my career I've ever let finances enter into the decision process."
He continued, saying that "Money is always the wrong reason for doing something that requires passionate devotion. The production was a leaky, rudderless ship in a perfect storm suffering from bad decisions, infighting, reluctance of the powers-that-be to take responsibility, and too many under-qualified cooks in the kitchen. The good news and bad news about directing is that, when the picture works you're showered with all the credit and when it doesn't work you're dumped on with all the blame. Both scenarios are undeserved. I take full responsibility for The Wolfman not working because it goes with the territory."
He did add, "There were wonderful aspects of The Wolfman experience. I inherited a crew that was the best of my experience, including a first assistant director without whom I could not have made it through the first two weeks. I had the immense pleasure of working with a cast that was as diverse and multifaceted as it could be. I rediscovered all that I love about London and its environs and I made some lifelong friends, on and off the crew."
The full piece, where Johnston also talks about working on Captain America, can be found here. And if Johnston captures some of the tone of his terrific movie of The Rocketeer, we maintain that Captain America may yet prove to be the finest film of the upcoming summer season...
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