Earlier this morning Variety published a story saying directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor had dropped off the film adaptation of DC Comics’s “Jonah Hex”, a story about a post-apocalyptic, anti-hero cowboy. I stayed away from the story since there wasn’t much more to tell outside of a rumor Josh Brolin was up for the title role. He wasn’t confirmed, just attached, and seeing how I know nothing about the comic the film would be based on I would have nowhere to go with the story. Then MTV came to my rescue.
The music news network posted a short interview piece with Brolin in which he is quoted saying, “When I first read it I thought, oh my God it’s awful! And then I had a moment a week later and I thought why is it awful? Maybe the thing to do is to do the most awful movie I can find.”
Neveldine and Taylor dropped off the project due to reported “creative differences”, a phrase that covers the gammut of reasons why anyone would leave a Hollywood project.
Brolin has had a pretty big last two years with No Country for Old Men and American Gangster in 2007 and his role as President Bush in Oliver Stone’s W. as well as an Oscar-nom worthy performance in Milk this year. He continued his thoughts on Jonah Hex telling MTV, “[I love] the absurdity of it… It almost allows you to create a new genre. I love going back into the spaghetti western idea and completely turning it around.”
I can’t help but wonder if bouncing from Oscar-worthy films to a completely “absurd” and “awful” flick is a good move. I immediately think back to Halle Berry with Catwoman, and while Brolin is highly unlikely to win an Oscar this year, that doesn’t mean he can’t get a whiff of the Oscar curse. Other actors such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Mira Sorvino also come to mind. This, of course, is a silly notion, but would Brolin still be best off forgetting about risking a chance on a film he deems awful or is it best to continue where the wind blows? Perhaps that’s a question for Sam Jackson, but he was unavailable as he is prepping for work on Snakes on a German U-Boat. Now that movie is going to be intense. “Genug ist genug! Ich habe es mit diesen motherfucking Schlangen auf diesem motherfucking Boot gehabt!”
