When we’ll see Frank Miller’s Ronin finally come to the big screen is still a question that’s unanswered. Thankfully, this weekend may give us some insight into the answer of that burning question. Director Sylvain White has been attached to Ronin for quite sometime now and if his (very fun) new film The Losers opens as good as it should this weekend, perhaps we wont have to wait too much longer for his take on Miller’s samurai epic. While we still know very little about this potential comic book adaptation, White was kind enough to give us some insight for what to expect.
While it’s a bit up in the air what White’s next project will be, he did say if a sequel to The Losers happens he may still be able to fit in another film before heading back to do a sequel. “If it works out this weekend, because that’ll be box office dependent, it’ll take time to write the screenplay and develop that into a sequel so I may have time to develop another movie before that.” Will that other movie be the long-awaited Ronin? “Again, I’d love for that to be Ronin. I’m very passionate about Ronin and I was working very hard on that before I had to put it on-hold for The Losers. I just finished The Losers two weeks ago and that schedule was crazy. They had us working until the last second on it. I’m now going to jump back into Ronin this spring.” When Sylvain says “this spring,” he means jumping back into development as they’re still waiting for a finished screenplay.
What about the 3D? White has expressed in the past that he’d love to do Ronin in 3D and this was all actually before the Avatar 3D craze kicked in. “I’d love to make in 3D, but the right way in 3D.” And by “the right way,” we can only assume he means not doing a gimmicky post-production conversion. White really seemed to grasp what makes 3D work and if he does end up shooting Ronin in 3D, expect something special.
Lastly, will this be a hard-R in typical Miller fashion? No idea, but it could very well be PG-13 explains White, “I’d love for it to be a PG-13, but I feel like that’d be much more difficult to accomplish. I think it’s possible, but I haven’t decided yet. I think I’ll shoot it the way I want to shoot it and then let the MPAA decide. It’s kind of how I did it on The Losers where I asked what the rules are, but didn’t really hold back in the end. In fact, people at the studio were worried about us not getting the PG-13 rating but they didn’t even make us do one change.”
Before all the fanboys in the world start crying foul over a possible “PG-13” Ronin, let me say this: The Losers works incredibly well as a PG-13 action movie. It doesn’t feel watered down at all. If we end up with a PG-13 version of Ronin, then expect the same impressive result we got from The Losers.
Check back with us later in the week for a full discussion with director Sylvain White, courtesy of our own Cole Abaius.
