Angelina Jolie hasn’t done that many comic book adaptations, and of the few she did sign up for, they didn’t go down too well. The most recent was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with one of its first major slip-ups and problem children, “Eternals.” But more than a decade earlier, the Oscar-winning star appeared in another comic book adaptation that bore little resemblance to its source material. Unlike her time as Thena in director Chloe Zhao’s MCU stint, Kazakhstan filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov gained her star power alongside James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman in a movie that felt like “The Matrix” and “X-Men.”
“Wanted” was an impressive, action-packed entry that followed a secret order of assassins whose contract list was organized by fate itself. Jolie played Fox, one of The Fraternity’s most skilled and devoted members, who, like the rest of the organization, didn’t just work well with bullets, but could curve them in order to reach her target. Playing the Neo to Jolie’s Trinity was James McAvoy, who, long before he took on the role of Charles Xavier in the “X-Men” prequels, played a desk jockey and living doormat, Wesley Gibson, who is enlisted in The Fraternity to learn its ways, only to uncover a conspiracy that breaks the secret group from the inside out.
Wanted wasn’t comic book accurate — but critics didn’t care
DeKing famously wasn’t a fan of “The Shining,” and once upon a time, Nicolas Cage and Tim Burton’s unfinished “Superman Lives” considered the prospect of the Man of Steel never flying in the film. Thankfully, “Wanted” was just that much of an indie comic book by Mark Millar, so the movie changed things up massively from the original source
In the original graphic novel, the story was set in a world where a massive war between superheroes and supervillains took place, and the latter won, ruling the planet in secret. Regardless of the story that made it to the screen, critics lapped up Bekmambetov’s action-packed movie, which earned a commendable 71% on Rotten Tomatoes. Kyle Smith of the New York Post (via RT) called it “A 12-armed heavy-metal drummer of a movie, kicking and flailing through two hours of impossible. The car chase of the year.”
Richard Roeper said “Wanted” is “made for fans of films that really just want to see some great visuals, some amazing sequences and some terrific performances.” With a $75 million budget, the film earned an impressive $342.5 million, nudging Universal to consider a sequel. Unfortunately, years passed, and the creative gears didn’t turn as quickly as they could’ve, perhaps proving that regardless of the critical and audience reception, a second visit to this world wasn’t so wanted, after all.
