Jonathan Liebesman Is Warner Bros. Top Choice To Direct Clash Of The Titans 2

Who will direct the sequel to Clash of the Titans? (Yeah, that sequel we're all desperate for, based on the value of the recent remake.) As ever, there is a list of names at Warner Bros., and the man at the top of the list is reportedly Jonathan Liebesman, who is currently working on Battle: Los Angeles.

The LA Times says that Liebesman is working already on a re-imagining of Odysseus and that he's the top choice to replace Clash director Louis Leterrier, who has already said he won't do the sequel. WB wants to move quickly, as Sam Worthington may soon be locked into Avatar 2 and they'll want to have him locked down for the Clash follow-up.

Oh, and the film will be shot in 3D — natively shot in the format, not post-converted into a forehead-stretching funhouse distortion as was the case with the last film.

So here's the thing: a big part of the reason that Clash of the Titans sucked is that there was a lot of mucking about with the story, probably right down to the wire. There's always a lot of mucking about on a massive studio movie, but in the case of Clash we saw entire character arcs changed around, other characters nearly deleted altogether (most of the Olympians)  and the whole structure of the movie altered from the earlier screenplay drafts that set the machine in motion in the first place.

If Legendary Pictures and WB execs can decide what they want from the sequel well enough ahead of time, whoever ends up directing might have a chance in hell of delivering a movie that is genuinely entertaining. There's plenty of room in reworked Greek myth to make a fun film; the studio and producers just have to let it happen.

The idea may be to shoot the film early next year; hopefully a solid script can be put together in the next six months so there'll be a solid foundation to build on. Am I betting that will happen? The January shoot, probably. The script? Not so much...