Kristen Stewart Failed to Replace Angelina Jolie in Her Hit Action Movie Sequel Even After Her Fame From the Twilight Series
2008’s Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted was a pivotal point in Angelina Jolie’s career, branding her in a different light and transforming her into an action star. She had the opportunity to demonstrate her action-acting prowess in the movie, which further cemented her place as an A-list celebrity. Since then, there has been good stuff planned for the Wanted sequel, and Jolie was always on the table, but it never got made. However, the Twilight actress once expressed her desire to join the Wanted squad.
Kristen Stewart ambitioned for an action role in Angelina Jolie’s Wanted
Kristen Stewart, renowned for The Twilight Saga and Charlie’s Angels, aspired for an action role in Wanted potential sequel. Though comparing Stewart to Jolie as an action lead seems unjust, Jolie is accustomed to playing the lead role in suspenseful films. Jolie was actually decided to be cast in the movie as she wanted to stand out from every action film she had previously seen. She once told MTV News:
“I came across this script. One is that it has a great story. A lot of action movies are kind of lacking in that. It’s got a dark sense of humor, it’s wild, and the stunts—I knew that they were going to be done in an original way,
In Wanted, Angelina Jolie played Fox, a skilled assassin who mentors the film’s protagonist, Wesley Gibson. However, there were rumors that Stewart was already being considered to take Jolie’s place as the lead assassin in the Wanted sequel . She hasn’t confirmed her replacement but has shared her excitement about accepting the opportunity. She once told MTV News:
“Wanted was a great movie; like, James McAvoy makes that movie different than most other action movies because he’s a real guy, and I feel like most action movies don’t have that. So if it had that element, definitely. But I wouldn’t just want to be in a mindless, blow-up movie. I’m not into it.”
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Angelina Jolie’s decision kills the Wanted sequel plans
The thriller film Wanted was adapted from an action comic by the same name. In the movie, Jolie played a member of the assassin’s trope called Fraternity. In the movie, she does not stay alive until the conclusion, deviating from the initial plan to remain alive. Considering the revelations of the assassin organization, she advocated for the script to go through the alterations and end up killing her.
“In the original, she doesn’t kill herself,” Jolie once told MTV News. “I actually changed the ending. I said, ‘If she were to find out she had killed people unjustly and was a part of something that wasn’t fair, then she should take her own life.’”
The choice made at that time resulted causing problems for the studio when they were working on ideas for a sequel to Wanted. However, after the lead actor’s death, the team in the process of developing plans for the movie wished to settle on an option to bring her character back. But the Maleficent star wasn’t convinced by the notion, especially since she was portraying a somewhat similar role in Salt, and finally ended up canceling the sequel plans.
“Being dead makes it difficult,” she once said at a press conference, according to Coming Soon. “They were trying to bring me back, but I kind of feel like if I die in a movie, I should actually die. I’m that way, and that character is not as complex as Salt’s. It would just be doing the exact same thing in another movie, so it’s not that interesting to me.”
Timur Bekmambetov plans Wanted revival, focusing on digital storytelling and screenlife
From the director’s point of view, Bekmambetov always had the intention to revive the film. He told SYFY Wire, regarding the sequel, to translate the whole narrative to digital spaces. The director empathized that the importance of interest in storytelling and the power of the internet stems from his interest in “Screenlife.”
“The Fraternity now, if it existed today, I’m sure would be in [the] digital space,” he said. “They can get messages and the names of some hackers. They will use blockchain to set up the assassinations. We live in a different world now. In [the years since] 2008, I am sure our world is not about guns or explosive materials anymore. It’s about the information; it’s about big data, blockchain, the dark web, and cryptocurrency. It’s where we live now.”
The director envisions the next Wanted sequel as a part of the Screenlife family, immersing viewers in a Screenlife version of the movie’s reality and world. By incorporating this innovative storytelling technique, he believes it will further emphasize the importance of information, big data, blockchain, the dark web, and cryptocurrency in today’s society. “For me, how I see this movie, the next Wanted, is [a] Screenlife version, Screenlife reality, Screenlife world”, he added.
Wanted movie is available in Netflix
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Source : Irish Examiner
