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Like it or not, The Punisher is headed back to the screen. The sequel, Punisher: War Zone has all but wrapped filming, director Lexi Alexander explains in her blog, with the exception of an exterior scene that was disrupted by a snowstorm. What’s really weird about Alexander’s wrap-up blog entry is that it gives so much praise to random events and pure dumb luck. It almost feels like she’s saying that it’s just luck if the movie turns out to be good.
For instance, we all know The Punisher needs some good, dark atmosphere to work. Put a guy in a skull shirt armed with tons of weapons in broad daylight and it just doesn’t work. Punisher is a creature of the night, and Mother Nature was apparently happy to oblige: ”There were a few surreal incidents that happened during the shoot. One was that for the first week of shooting, every time Ray Stevenson stepped in front of the camera, it started raining. It gave us all goose bumps because Ray portrayed Frank Castle with all his pain and history so well that the rain was perfect for the dark mood and feeling of those scenes. I’m sure everybody will think I used rain machines, but cross my heart and hope to die, there were no rain machines.”
While Alexander’s blog entry is filled with the typical “so-and-so is brilliant and really talented and I appreciate them being in my movie,” the director isn’t afraid to give away some credit to lucky circumstances either: ”The other even more bizarre incident was during a scene we call the Alley Fight. The location looked beautiful and pretty much everybody was mesmerized by the colors and lights we had chosen for it. It wasn’t until the next day when we watched dailies in my trailer that we realized there was a huge lit-up skull -- identical to the Punisher skull -- glowing through the front door of a building in the background. I immediately complimented my DP and the key gaffer on the great idea, but they were as stunned as I was. Nobody had planned that. It just appeared.”
On one hand, with Hollywood all full of kudos and thanks, it’s almost refreshing to hear a director state so many things were luck and circumstance. Then again, does Alexander really want to give so much credit away to events outside of her control? Assuming the movie turns out good, it may be refreshing to hear a DVD commentary track that follows this trend of disclosure.
For instance, we all know The Punisher needs some good, dark atmosphere to work. Put a guy in a skull shirt armed with tons of weapons in broad daylight and it just doesn’t work. Punisher is a creature of the night, and Mother Nature was apparently happy to oblige: ”There were a few surreal incidents that happened during the shoot. One was that for the first week of shooting, every time Ray Stevenson stepped in front of the camera, it started raining. It gave us all goose bumps because Ray portrayed Frank Castle with all his pain and history so well that the rain was perfect for the dark mood and feeling of those scenes. I’m sure everybody will think I used rain machines, but cross my heart and hope to die, there were no rain machines.”
While Alexander’s blog entry is filled with the typical “so-and-so is brilliant and really talented and I appreciate them being in my movie,” the director isn’t afraid to give away some credit to lucky circumstances either: ”The other even more bizarre incident was during a scene we call the Alley Fight. The location looked beautiful and pretty much everybody was mesmerized by the colors and lights we had chosen for it. It wasn’t until the next day when we watched dailies in my trailer that we realized there was a huge lit-up skull -- identical to the Punisher skull -- glowing through the front door of a building in the background. I immediately complimented my DP and the key gaffer on the great idea, but they were as stunned as I was. Nobody had planned that. It just appeared.”
On one hand, with Hollywood all full of kudos and thanks, it’s almost refreshing to hear a director state so many things were luck and circumstance. Then again, does Alexander really want to give so much credit away to events outside of her control? Assuming the movie turns out good, it may be refreshing to hear a DVD commentary track that follows this trend of disclosure.
