Before becoming famous for his starring role in the ‘X-Men’ franchise and becoming a bona fide star, Scottish actor James McAvoy managed to play not only in ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ (2005) and ‘Atonement’ (2007), but also in ‘Wanted’ (2008), based on a comic book of the same name by Mark Millar, who collaborated with Marvel and DC. After this role, people started to see McAvoy not just as a sensitive romantic, but as an action hero. His character portrays a regular loser named Wesley Gibson, a clerk who is approached by a secret organization called ‘The Brotherhood of Weavers’, which tries to turn him into a first-rate hitman. ‘Wanted’, on the one hand, follows classic comic book storylines like ‘Spider-Man’, but, on the other hand, it certainly references movies like ‘The Matrix’, as well. Gibson, just like Neo, is trying to change his boring life into a more extreme version of it - by getting out of the Matrix. Or rather - to go against the “loom of fate”, as the outpost of this “brotherhood” is, naturally, the weaving factory.
The weaving factory scenes were mostly filmed on the grounds of a former sugar factory in Prague. Several key scenes related to the personal destiny of McAvoy’s character were filmed in the interiors of a medieval Kršivoklát castle, located not too far away from the Czech capital. Many of the action scenes were shot not only in Prague, but also in Chicago. There are car chases, spectacular gunfights and a Hollywood-style train wreck that pays homage to the best of the James Bond franchise. Bekmambetov’s team from his Russian ‘Bazelevs’ studio worked on the special effects produced on Russian software - there are more than a thousand cuts with them in the movie.
The CGI production cost more than $1 million and various sources estimated the total movie budget to be from $75 to $150 million. The motion picture collected $350 million at the worldwide box office and, on the day of release, even did better than ‘Live Free or Die Hard’ (2007) and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ (2007). It also received two Oscar nominations - for best sound and best sound editing.
Genre-wise, ‘Wanted’ is an energized action movie, rather than a comics-based motion picture in the sense that we are used to seeing after the popular installments of ‘The Avengers’ and ‘X-Men’. Despite the classic plot about a completely unremarkable man gaining superpowers, comic book creator Mark Millar spent a long time battling over the script. He wanted the film to be the opposite of ‘Spider-Man’. In this respect, he found an understanding from Bekmambetov, who practically spared the movie from displaying any supernatural powers and concentrated just on the action movie genre, albeit not stripped of a comic book atmosphere. Interestingly enough, Chris Pratt adds to this atmosphere. Long before his starring role in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ (2014), Pratt played Wesley Gibson’s “best” friend in ‘Wanted’ - a silly colleague with whom McAvoy’s character’s girlfriend cheats on him. By the way, on the wave of the current popularity of the film on Netflix, Bekmambetov has already called in Pratt for a sequel, rumors of which have been going on since the release of the original movie.
Angelina Jolie played the lead female role in ‘Wanted’. It was her character who told Wesley Gibson about his abilities, the connection with the ‘Brotherhood of Weavers’ and, eventually, became his mentor, forcing the confused clerk to learn to shoot first at pork carcasses and then at the “villains”. In 2008, when the movie came out, Hollywood’s femme fatale continued to enjoy large-scale action projects, such as ‘Lara Croft’ and ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’. In ‘Wanted’, she not only worked with a Russian director and actors for the first time, but, in one scene, she even managed to drive the famous Russian Zhiguli car. Apparently, the Russian spirit “possessed” the Hollywood actress. A couple of years later, she played Natasha Chenkova, a double agent of the CIA and KGB, in the Philip Noyce action movie ‘Salt’ (2010), where she gorgeously ran through a forest full of birch trees.
One of the main roles in the movie is played by Russian actor Konstantin Khabensky. He plays a character from the ‘Brotherhood of Weavers’, who is a kind of mentor to Wesley Gibson. He is the one to whom Angelina Jolie performs CPR on in one of the scenes.
For the director, who became famous after the movie ‘Night Watch’ (2004), which was shown at the Berlin Film Festival in 2005 and then released in the U.S., where it was a success, ‘Wanted’ was a Hollywood debut. After that, Bekmambetov, along with Tim Burton, produced the animated film ‘Nine’ (2009), directed ‘President Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ (2012) and the historical ‘Ben-Hur’ (2016). Then, he invented the screenlife format and released ‘Unfriended’ (2014), ‘Searching’ (2018) and ‘Profile’ (2018). In addition, his screenlife series ‘Dead of Night’ (2021) was recently released on Snapchat.
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