It has been a while since we have heard of any official progress on Youngblood, the Screen adaption based on the superhero team from Image Comics. Outside of casting rumors, the film has been continually delayed and almost forgotten about. Earlier this year director Brett Ratner stated his hopes for Youngblood becoming a franchise. He confirmed that the Rush Hour series is done, as is his involvement with the X-Men franchise, but he would love another opportunity to helm a superhero franchise, no matter the budget. Youngblood very well could be that opportunity, especially now that its legal issues are at an end and they can continue working on the script.
Ratner's involvement on the project is surprising, after the poor critical reception of X-Men: The Last Stand, a film which seemingly stalled the franchise and earned a lot of fanboy angst, it was curious to many for Ratner to be picked to command another comic book movie feature film. Screenrant state that, Youngblood comic book creator Rob Liefeld chose him directly. “Rob brought it to me. I think Bryan Singer wanted this… Rob was like, ‘My favorite X-Men [movie] is yours.’ And you’re a comic book geek? So Rob came in and came after me and said, ‘I want you to do this comic book. I believe that you could do this great.’ I was happy.” This explanation is questionable, considering Singer is widely known for making the only two “good” X-Men films, to the point where producer Lauren Shuler Donner and Twentieth Century Fox brought him back to help with X-Men: First Class after two lesser installments in X3 and Wolverine. Reading that Singer wanted Youngblood but Liefeld gave it to Ratner instead, saying X-Men 3 was the best of the trilogy, is rather off-putting for comic book movie fans who wholly disagree. Regardless of the expecations of quality of Ratner’s next foray into the superhero genre, Youngblood is the track to eventually become a reality with its director determined to make it happen. “I’m a tenacious guy and I persevere and I don’t stop and if I focus it’s going to happen. And I’m focused on it.”
MTV chatted with Ratner recently about the status and plans for Youngblood to which the director stated that they are “still working on it. There were some rights issues. We actually waited for over a year for the rights to these comic books that were made by independent comic books. There was a lot of owners of these comic books and a lot of people were claiming they had the rights. It’s taken a long time but I think we’ve finally cleared the legal part of it.”
With the paperwork out of the way, that gives hope that a script can be finalized soon. Ratner made it clear a long time ago that no casting would begin until that script is complete, so you can put an end to any more rumors or fan desires of Robert Pattinson climbing aboard to star as the film’s lead for the time being.
