Rob Cohen Goes Medieval, Drops xXx Sequel

rob cohen

In March it was announced that McG had signed on to develop and possibly direct Medieval, a spec script by Mike Finch & Alex Litvak sold for $800,000 against $1.6 million.  But McG has too many other projects on his plate, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Captain Nemo at Disney, a big screen adaptation of the musical Spring Awakening for Warner Bros and possibly fifth Terminator film.

So who is going to take over for McG? Super duper hack director Rob Cohen. You know, the guy who directed The Fast and the Furious, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Stealth and xXx.

Speaking of xXx, this move also means that Cohen will not be reteaming with Vin Diesel on the previously announced sequel xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. Diesel is free to explore other options.

It was a tough decision about xXx,” Cohen told Variety. “I talked to Vin over the weekend and said I hoped they would wait, but that if they find another director who’s right for the sequel, I certainly wouldn’t be angry. But I could not let something like this go.

Back to Medieval, McG is still involved as a producer. New Regency is financing the film, which will be distributed through Fox (It would be too easy to make a joke about the recent quality of Fox films and note that Cohen could only contribute to that legacy).

Described as The Dirty Dozen or The Magnificent Seven set in medieval times, the story begins with “a monk, a knight, a samurai, a zulu, an Arab, a gypsy and a viking” in a jail cell together awaiting execution the next morning. A sleazy lawyer arrives and offers them a solution — If the seven of them can infiltrate the King’s castle and steal the crown, they will be set free. GoIntoTheStory described the adventure as a “Medieval Mission Impossible to steal the King’s crown, performing numerous badass slow-motion ass-kickings while evading Indiana Jones-like traps.” Sounds kinda cool, but with Cohen involved, I’ve lost all interest.

Related Posts with Thumbnails

  • You know, it's so hard to take Rob Cohen seriously after this experience...

    On the DVD commentary for 'Dragonheart', a stupid special effects dragon movie with Dennis Quaid, Cohen talks about how he had to move on to direct the amazing script for 'Daylight' with Sylvester Stallone while doing the post production on 'Dragonheart'. Which is all fine and dandy until he mentions that only Steven Speilberg has had to do this while juggling 'Jurassic Park' and 'Schindler's List'.

    Same thing...'Dragonheart' and 'Daylight'
  • dan
    i came here to say pretty much the same thing. the implication is that mcg is not a super duper hack. who in their right mind says that?
  • dhgdh
    Not to mention that now they have both McG and Cohen attached to the Medieval film ... and it's going to suck nuts twice as bad now ...
  • Damn it, now we'll get another fantasy/action/adventure pile of bad CGI and probably a string of bad to mediorce actors. Not that having McG direct was that much better, but Rob Cohen is definitely a step down.
  • dhgdh
    ROB COHEN CAN JUST BLOW ME.

    HERE'S A CLUE, NOBODY IS GOING TO SEE MEDIEVAL.
  • LL. Y
    pale argument full of hatred and anger...
  • dhgdh
    ROB COHEN IS A HACK AND HERE'S PROOF:

    This movie sounds more like 'The Seven Samurai Meets The Dirty Dozen.'

    The man is a talentless hack.

    Neither Vin Diesel nor Rob Cohen had produced anything worthwhile since XxX and when Cohen and Diesel decide they want to do another Riddick movie and XxX movie, now studios want them again? Medieval is going to suck just like Stealth and the Mummy 3 did.

    Cohen just needs to give it up. McG isn't much better, Terminator 4 sucked.

    What we have here is a bunch of talentless directors who team up with past actors, hype themselves up, and then ditch certain films that fans have been waiting for just so they can attach themselves to other projects.

    Cohen had all of this planned out just to screw with everyone.
  • I could film a movie about my ball sack and put "Directed by" in front of it, and I would still be less of a hack director than McG or Rob Cohen. And I couldn't even be a hack cuz I was "having a go at it" instead of just sitting on my ass and writing about it.
  • LL. Y
    than, do make one about your sack and see what people will call you.
  • " the story begins with a monk, a knight, a samurai, a zulu, an Arab, a gypsy and a viking in a jail cell together awaiting execution the next morning"

    Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke...
  • mo XXX mo problems
  • dagreenman18
    medieval sound cool, xXx 3 is horrible idea. Then again, it IS the guy who thought The Mummy needed another sequel.
  • deathmetalhero
    well after hearing about this and also reading about how one of the dudes from twilight is going to play varg vikernes in the lords of chaos movie i am giving up on movies. Seriously I leave for like a month and everything goes to shit. Thats the last time I go to rehab.
  • Ant. V
    The guy has done everything from Miami Vice episodes to stuff like DRAGON and XXX. How in EFF can you call him a hack?? He's been a solid working director since you were buying that Miami Vice lunchbox in high school. Pick your words better please... I'd expect more from you.
  • Daniel
    He's still better than Bay.. Stealth, although sucks, had some great action sequences in it who make you felt like you're flying in the air, and you could understand everything.. un-like the action sequences in Transformers that make you felt like someone is hitting you in the face over and over again =/
  • Lawdog
    Yeah, Steath has 2 great action scenes surrounded by 80 minutes of crap. It seems like everytime I see it's on tv somewhere, I'll flip over to it just in time to see I just missed the only scene I wanted to watch. :/

    As far as XXX goes, I remember I was entertained by it, but not enough to remember anything about the actual movie. I remember State of the Nation better because it was so horrible.

    I was holding out hope that The Fast and the Furious would be a great movie for speed freaks like me. Alas, it turned out to be douchebags vs. douchebags in a battle of preposterous car stunts.

    I never saw the third Mummy movie. I was done with that franchise about 20 minutes into The Mummy Returns.

    This reminds me of a joke: a monk, a knight, a samurai, a zulu, an Arab, a gypsy and a viking walk into a bar...
  • Lawdog
    State of the Union...whatever...it sucked whatever it's called.
  • dhgdh
    I agree ... Rob Cohen can suck my nuts. Movie fans have been waiting for a new XxX movie ever since that piss-poor Ice Cube starred in the second one. It just goes to show you that Rob "cocksucker" Cohen only cares about doing movies that are just rehashed story-ideas from other movies rather doing something original like continuing to give Ameircan audiences their very own James Bond-type series.

    Cohen is a hack, simply for dropping XX in favor of Medieval ...
  • Tazer
    Calling Cohen a hack compared to McG's pitiful track record is pretty unfair to Cohen.
  • T4
  • edog
    ... dropped like a stone
  • Check the international. Oh and 'failing' at the box office does not a hack make.
  • LL. Y
    Sounds like an interesting story...but I don't agree with you calling Cohen a 'hack'. There are far more real hack filmmakers around.

    The Fast & The Furious was quiet original as the first installment of the franchise. And XXX and Mummy 3 delivered decent B.O in their own categories.
  • But real hacks do bring good box office coughBrettRatnercough
  • Is "the return of Xander Cage" seriously the tagline for the new XXX? They should've just gone the "Fast and Furious" route and cut a letter out and made him Double X (XX)
blog comments powered by Disqus