Wolverine not indicative of Benioff’s writing ability

With X-Men Origins: Wolverine opening today, I figure there might be more than a few ASOIAF fans going to see it and forming an opinion of Benioff’s script writing abilities. And if the early word is to be believed, you might think that Benioff’s script writing abilities are severely lacking. I haven’t seen the film, but most of the reviews are profoundly negative and one of the areas many reviewers found particularly terrible was the script. Especially in regards to how it is so unfaithful to the source material.

When I first started hearing this, I was concerned. After doing some research though, my concerns have been alleviated. It seems that Benioff was only involved in writing the first few drafts of the script. Another writer, Skip Woods (screenwriter of mindless action flicks Hitman and Swordfish), was brought on to make changes to Benioff’s original script. There were also a few uncredited writers that did rewrites as well. Apparently the shooting script you see on screen is much different from the original draft(s) submitted by Benioff. At least one report I read implied that Benioff walked away from the project, which was the reason they brought Woods on board. I have a hunch that some suits at Fox were instructing Benioff to make changes to the script that he wasn’t comfortable making and so he abandoned the project. This is just a guess though.

So please, if you see Wolverine, don’t blame Benioff for how horrible you may think it is. If you want to get a sense of Benioff’s talent as a writer, check out The 25th Hour (book and film), Troy, The Kite Runner or his most recent book, which is getting lots of great reviews, City of Thieves.

• Published on 05/01/2009 at 1:28 PM CDT
• Last updated on 10/20/2016 at 4:56 PM CDT