matthieu kassovitz Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It comes as little surprise whenever a studio decides to kindly remove a film from a director's hands -- the situation with Lionsgate's treatment of Punisher: War Zone still smells fishy from this end -- but while most filmmakers would proceed to bite their tongues and salvage their careers, Mathieu Kassovitz begs to differ on his own film, the Vin Diesel vehicle Babylon A.D., which opens this Friday in an all-too-familiar August dump situation (joining it on the marquee: alleged comedies Disaster Movie and College).

In an exclusive interview with AMC's sci-fi blog, Kassovitz admits that a troubled production and comprised final cut (at least in the States, although reviews from elsewhere aren't much kinder) are responsible for turning his adaptation of Maurice Georges Dantec's futuristic novel into "pure violence and stupidity... like a bad episode of '24'."

According to VinXperience (Please God, one day let me have a website dedicated to me with the world Xperience included somewhere within), Vin Diesel will star in the big budget futuristic sci-fi action-packed thriller, Babylon A.D. Directed by Matthieu Kassovitz from his own script, the story was inspired by the Maurice Dantec novel Babylon Babies and surrounds genetic manipulation.

Diesel will play a mercenary who must transport a woman from Russia to Canda, then learns there's some crazy virus inside her that could screw the entire human race. Sometimes I feel that way after eating Taco Bell, so I can totally relate. Budgeted at $60 million, the film was originally supposed to star Kassovitz's long-time collaborater Vincent Cassel, however he's been replaced by Diesel...for obvious reasons (Hint: An extra $30 million or more to the box office). Fox will get the domestic rights and outside Europe while Canal Plus will distribute within Europe. Filming begins in June. Anyone read the book and really looking forward to this? I'm not the biggest Vin Diesel fan in the world, so I'm going to need a bunch more reasons to go see this.

Next up for Diesel will be the Sidney Lumet directed Find Me Guilty, of which a trailer is available through VinXperience as well.

[via Coming Soon]