Thomas Jane, speaking at Fanboy Expo Knoxville, said that some ideas for a sequel to “The Punisher” (2004) were rejected by former Marvel CEO Avi Arad. One of them involved directing none other than Rob Zombie.
”There have been a few iterations of Punisher 2. One of them would have been directed by Rob Zombie, which I think would have been interesting. We were brainstorming script ideas and trying to find a new director. The folks at Marvel wanted to go with a different director,” Jane said.
Recalling that John Dahl, known for ‘Kill Me Again and Death by Order’, came to begin negotiations to take over the role, but withdrew in 2007. And Walter Hill, classics ’48 Hours’ and ‘Streets of Fire also came closer.
“Our ideas were a real fit, and so we brought it to the studio, but we ended up turning it down for reasons beyond my ability to comprehend. That’s when I said, ‘If you don’t make that perfect Punisher movie with the perfect person for the job, what’s going to happen?” That’s when I realized I had to go. I had to say, ‘Look, I don’t I’m not sure you really know what you’re doing, so the chances of it going wrong are very high.
Which ended by saying, “Circle of Blood is basically the Punisher inside the prison. And every criminal in there wants to kill him. He was in the lion’s den, and of course he got there. is put on purpose because he was after some untouchable guy. I thought, ‘We can have so much fun doing that.’ Unfortunately, that’s all we did.
Recall that ‘The Punisher’ only brought in 54 million US dollars worldwide, suffering from very poor reception from critics.