Though he was included on the shortlist reported back in May of directors who might replace Darren Aronofsky directing The Wolverine, Mark Romanek has officially taken himself out of the running. Talking to Digital Spy, Romanek admit he was in fact on the list, but passed on the project once he got a look at the script:
"That script was a terrific version of that kind of thing, but not something I felt really passionate about."
This would be the second time the Never Let Me Go director came close to directing a story tinged with the supernatural-- he famously quit his job directing The Wolfman just weeks before it was set to shoot, leaving future Captain America director Joe Johnston to take over and turn in a complete trainwreck of a film. It's very unlikely the same will happen with The Wolverine, if only because there's a lot more riding on it, and Romanek didn't seem to get all that lose to taking the job anyway. Having just made the tender and achingly precise Never Let Me Go, it would have been a strange shift for him anyway.
With Romanek officially out of the running, we're still dealing with all the other names that were on that shortlist--Elite Squad's Jose Padilha, The Bourne Identity's Doug Liman, Training Day's Antoine Fuqua, Fast Five's Justin Lin, Warrior's Gavin O'Connor, Knight and Day's James Mangold, and newbie Gary Shore. Someone hunt one of them down to get a yes or no answer so we can start narrowing down this list even further.
