It’s been long enough since Sparks announced their Annette follow-up X Crucior that you’re forgiven for thinking it might’ve been shelved. I talked to them about it, briefly, in 2021, and a little over a year passed before Focus Features announced they’d acquired the project. Making today a major occurence: after a tease on the band’s Twitter last week, it’s been confirmed (via Empire) that John Woo will direct the “half-musical,” which the director calls his first project “where I don’t need to hire a stuntman.”
Details remain sadly scant, even as Woo acknowledges some rewrites (from what or why) are underway. Terribly exciting all the same, not only as a collision of two super-distinct sensibilities but a kind-of-fulfillment of the brothers’ longtime love for (and occasional dabbles with) Hong Kong cinema. And it continues a surprisingly verdant time for Woo, who followed last year’s compelling experiment Silent Night with a better-than-expected remake-of-sorts of his classic The Killer. In the same interview he details a Brian Helgeland-scripted western in his purview: a project with “a lot of romance and a lot of emotion and exciting action.” Woo’s unlikely to get any younger than his current 77 years of age, but the recent films suggest a different kind of action maestro––one we’d do well to appreciate while he’s plying a new trade.
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