Two days ago we posted a story reporting that director Xavier Gens had effectively been stripped of his power on the upcoming video game adaptation Hitman with editor Nicholas De Toth brought in to supervise a calmer, gentler version of the film - the exact same role Fox hired him to fill on the recent Live Free or Die Hard. Word from people very close to the film was that Gens' submitted cut was far too violent for the studio's tastes and that they were responding by bringing in outside guns to reshape it into something more to their liking. This story has since been picked up by film and gaming sites around the globe and today we got a response from Fox's PR arm.
They confirm that De Toth has been brought in but are labelling him a consultant and not an editor. They also say the film will be going out rated R and that Gens is still working on it. To which I respond with two obvious questions: if Gens is still in control why was an outside 'consultant' brought in to go over the edit of the film at all, and which of the two actually has more power considering that Gens is currently not even on this continent while De Toth is working away?
It's very unlikely that any of the principals will be able to comment directly on this - contracts these days all have PR requirements built in - but I'm doing the math on what Fox is telling me and it's not quite adding up.