Lexi Alexander Talks Punisher: War Zone

"It's all dark and cold."

by | December 7, 2007 | Comments

Dying for the inside scoop on the upcoming Punisher: War Zone? Today’s your lucky day!

Director Lexi Alexander took a break from filming to talk with IGN Movies about the latest attempt to bring Marvel’s preeminent urban vigilante successfully to the screen, answering questions about the storyline, her feelings about following up The Punisher, and — perhaps most importantly — just what kind of an R-rated flick Lionsgate is giving her room to create.

(The answer is “hard R.” You can exhale now, Punisher fans.)

Referring to Punisher: War Zone as “a complete reboot,” Alexander tells IGN that her version of Frank Castle is “a dirty brawler,” and that the film will be set in a “surreal” version of New York City. Predicting a 70/30 split between gunfights and hand-to-hand combat, the director says:

The last Punisher movie really wasn’t relevant to us — like there’s a lot of comparison to it, but none of us or any of the people on the team ever looked at it and said, “OK, how can we be different or better?” We just kind of made our own film, and the one thing I concentrated on was to really make it as close to the Marvel Max series as possible. I think we really achieved it in terms of the look as well as the tone. When I look at the dailies I’m getting, seriously I think I’m looking at a Max comic book in front of me because it’s the same tone.

I get this question a lot and it really wasn’t relevant. I think the feeling of it is going to be much darker and I think that one thing the comic fans will realize immediately is that the world we create feels like the comic book world in terms of the look as well. The reason that I’ve been sick all week is because I’ve been shooting in minus-degrees all night for eight weeks; I literally haven’t seen daylight. I’m like a vampire [laughs]. So you can imagine how this movie’s going to look. It’s all dark and cold.

To read more about Punisher: War Zone — including just how “freaky, dark and violent” Alexander intends to get — click on the link below!

Source: IGN Movies