With Fast Five having brought home about $600 million in box office receipts and the sequel set up for a 2013 release already, Justin Lin is an in-demand director who can do some picking and choosing of projects. And he’s having quite a few thrown his way, particularly by Universal who wants to keep him close by. As the dust settles from that film and its worldwide release, Lin is making those choices and things are starting to take shape. One of the first things that’s happened is that he’s stepped down as the director for the Highlander reboot (I so wish that the original held up better!) for Summit Entertainment but will be remaining as a producer on it. Summit is wanting to fast-track this reboot in hopes of it shoring up the eventual losses to come once Twilight finishes its run so a short list of directors is likely to surface soon and someone brought in to get the feature rolling.
Beyond that, Lin is getting into talks with certain parties about moving into the realm of the Terminator franchise, which at this stage could use a proper reboot with how muddied and complicated things have been. According to one source, Lin had this to say about it. “Just even this week, I had a great meeting with Arnold [Schwarzenegger] and James Cameron, just sitting down unofficially. And James is so gracious because he’s not part of the project, he’s not going to be producing, but it was great of him just as a filmmaker to take time out to just talk.”
Lin also followed up a bit on Schwarzenegger himself when it comes to the franchise, saying, “I don’t know where it’s going to lead, but I never thought at this level I’m going to be able to meet filmmakers and be in situations where they’re that gracious and insightful and so inclusive. And that’s a franchise that I’m working on right now, but again, if I’m going to be kind of the gatekeeper to it, I want to make sure that I can hopefully build it up the right way – and so far that’s been the most fun. Just to be able to take James Cameron’s brain and for him to be so open even though he has no stakes in it, just as a human being, that’s something that I will always remember as a part of my journey as a filmmaker.”
[Source: Collider, Latino Review]
