One of the reasons Wanted made nearly $350 million worldwide in 2008 was due to the presence of Angelina Jolie, so Universal were keen to have her in the sequel (even though she shot herself in the head at the end of the film). However it was announced in February that despite director Timur Bekmambetov finding a way for her character to return, Jolie wouldn’t be.
This was like a bullet to the head of Wanted 2‘s production, causing it to stall, and now James McAvoy has joined the X-Men which means the sequel is unlikely to go ahead anytime soon. While promoting her upcoming film Salt Jolie spoke about why she didn’t return, and it’s a pretty straight forward reason.
From Coming Soon:
“Being dead makes it difficult,” she confirmed. “They were (trying to bring me back) but I kind of feel like if I die in a movie, I should die actually. I’m that way, and that character is not as complex as Salt. It would just be doing the exact same thing in another movie, so it’s not that interesting to me.”
Bringing Angelina Jolie back would have been purely because she is the star, and I doubt it would have worked story-wise.
While she may not be interested in playing an assassin again Jolie has expressed interest in playing Maleficent, the wicked fairy godmother who cast the original spell on Sleeping Beauty and can morph into a fire-breathing dragon.
In March we heard Tim Burton was developing a live-action movie of the Disney character, and in today’s interview Jolie said that while there is no script she has “loved Maleficent since I was a little girl, so when I heard somebody may be doing it, I was the first one to try to (get it). I would love to work with (Tim Burton), it would be a dream to work with him. I think he’s just extraordinary.”
Jolie will be seen in Salt on July 23rd, and in The Tourist alongside Johnny Depp next February.
