Last summer, it was reported that Rob Cohen ("The Fast And The Furious," "xXx") is developing the movie adaptation of Everette Hartsoe’s ’90s comic book, “Razor” about urban vigilante Nicole Mitchell who after the death of her police detective father, vowed to clean up the scums as a superheroine that’s named for the blades she wears on her arms
I recently interviewed Rob Cohen at the press junket for his latest film, "The Hurricane Heist," and I was so curious about who he may have in mind to potentially cast for the lead role in "Razor." Cohen revealed to me that he actually has had talks with Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld ("True Grit") about this possibility but she's not the only one that's on his list..
“I just made the list with the casting director yesterday, it’s a wide variety, like fifteen names on the list. Some of them are like the girl in “Split,” Anya Taylor-Joy. She’s high on the list. We had been in conversations with Hailee Steinfeld. So we’re going at that level. We’re not trying to get Jennifer Lawrence. We’re trying to get that new young woman who’s charismatic and physically confident and who can be… what I’ve done in my new script of it, that the creator of the comic Everett Hartsoe loves"
As far as the approach that Cohen is going for with this adaptation, he's made it clear what she wants the lead character Nicole Mitchell in "Razor" to be like and it has to do a with a certain historical figure, a French heroine to be exact...
"I’ve made it a Joan of Arc story. So now it’s that whole idea of the girl sees her father murdered in front of her, and her sister is kidnapped and she’s left to die who goes and spends ten years in a mental institution and comes out with voices that are telling her what to do. And basically beginning to organize the women who are so abused and belittled in this society, it’s slightly futuristic. There’s no such thing as queen city but it’s this world I made up on Everette’s foundation, where women are in a very inferior place. And she leads them to an uprising and a victory like Joan of Arc but the job’s only half done when the movie ends, it could go on further hopefully.”
Although Cohen didn't tell me when he hopes production/filming on "Razor" would start, he did say that he's close to getting the script right that would fit his vision..
“Yes, it’s going to be good. Sometimes you write a script and when you get up from the computer, you go I think I hit that clearly, I think I got that. And sometimes you get up from a script and you go well some of it works, and some of it doesn’t, I don’t know why that the stuff that doesn’t work doesn’t seem to work. But this one, when I stood up and looked at it and re-read it from the beginning, and I went yes, this is a very good script of this idea and I can’t wait to make it. We’re working.”
Since its debut, the character has showed up in a number of comic book series including a cross over with James O’Barr’s “The Crow” books and “Razor” popularizes the “Bad Girl” trend of the ’90s comics in which a bunch of anti-hero female characters were embraced by fans everywhere.
Jeff Most who produced 1994's “The Crow” movie, will co-produce “Razor” with Cohen. You can read my complete interview with Rob Cohen OVER THERE.
