CraveOnline: Well, you went there. Who was in charge of those decisions? Whose fault was Elektra? 

Zak Penn: It’s the people who hire me for all my jobs. No, you know what? I don't know who to blame honestly.

CraveOnline: Maybe start with Daredevil? 

Zak Penn: Well, the only difference I think is Daredevil is about a guy who, once again, pulls on tights and fights crime. Elektra is about a woman who is an assassin. Elektra could have been La Femme Nikita. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if La Femme Nikita was based on that character. That’s kind of what I pitched them. The reason why it might be my fault is that I should have known that Fox was never going to make an R-rated movie. That’s just not in their DNA and that this would turn into kinda of a denuded version of it which doesn’t work. It doesn’t work to have a PG-13 movie about an assassin. 

CraveOnline: So they should go harder core. 

Zak Penn: But let’s be honest. If you’re making a $200 million movie that has to, in order to not bankrupt your company and put everybody who works there out of work, to make an R-rated movie for $200 million is borderline. It’s definitely tough. You’re making everything a lot harder for yourself. Whereas, making a $70 million R-rated movie… Even the venal studio executives who I don’t like, I understand their point of view. They shouldn’t make an R-rated movie for $200 million because I don’t want to see the people who work on that studio lot get fired because I had a vision that Wolverine needs to have blood spurt out. I would prefer to see that version but there’s nothing inherent about that having to be done that way. I do think though, about why take all this source material from this area, there is a lot of good source material in comics. I think actually it’s not a big secret. Comic books make for much better movies than old sitcoms or novels that are written not appropriate for the screen.

CraveOnline: Should Wolverine have been R? 

Zak Penn: That was our frustration. He’s got razor sharp claws and you can’t show blood. So what does he do? In every scene, he’s running around blocking, hitting you with the claws and not cutting you. Where do you go with that? There’s no way to do it. 

CraveOnline: Do you think you need to be deeply familiar with the comic book to write the script. 

Zak Penn: I wish that that was the only requirement because I know a lot about comic books and video games. That’s what I spend my time doing. I wish that were the rule but it is crazy when it’s not like it’s that hard to catch up on the mythology of some of these characters. It’s no harder than adapting anything else. By the way, you know who wasn’t? Bryan Singer was not a fan of any of those comic books. He admits it I think. Sometimes the people who are the biggest fans of it are the people who screw it up the most and vice versa. I had somebody start screaming, “You killed Cyclops” at me. First of all, it’s just an actor and he’s wearing a costume and he’s fine. Second of all, I didn’t kill him. It’s crazy but you know what? I more often find myself on the other side of that which is sitting with some people who don’t actually give a sh*t. For the most part, there’s a lot of people who are making these movies who are fairly cynical, who don’t actually care about characters. My big argument is if there’s something that’s actually good, why are we arbitrarily changing it? There’s a lot of that in Hollywood. That, to me, is the real argument, when you’re trying to say, “Okay, look, there’s a reason why all these fans are apesh*t for certain elements of it. They like the core idea of X-men tremendously. Let’s not mess with that.” When you get into the crazy “Cyclops’ visor has to be 4 inches” or whatever, I kind of say that’s part for the course. That’s what they pay you for. It’s not worth complaining. It is sad sometimes that people get so worked up about it but they are the people who are going to go to the movie so many times so you try to make them happy as best you can. What else can you do? 

CraveOnline: Have you fought with directors of your other comic book movies? 

Zak Penn: Yes, and almost everything. Honestly, I get very passionate about it, probably too much so. I’m trying to chill out in my old age. I’ve been doing this a long time. I started very young. I had to learn the hard way that if you fight with people about everything, you’re just not going to be around through to the end. I was very candid I think with Fox about my frustrations with the direction on X-Men 3. Just forget about all the problems with adapting the comic. I just felt we set up this Jean Grey story and then they just didn’t let us finish telling it. The first half of the movie starts it and the second half of the movie doesn’t really pay it off. That was a big fight, a lot of yelling. Usually if you’re fighting with the director, you’re usually fired pretty quickly after that. That’s my experience. I’ve been on those kinds of movies. They don’t keep you around if you’re telling them that they’re ruining the movie.

CraveOnline: Was the X3 fight between you and the director vs. the studio? 

Zak Penn: Very often. With Bryan that was quite often trying to help Bryan see his vision through. 

CraveOnline: Have you ever been surprised how well something turned out? 

Zak Penn: I actually thought X-Men 2 was better than I ever thought it would be. When we were working on it, I thought it’s too many characters. Fox is never going to let him do this. It’s too meditative. How are we going to get these scenes of these guys talking in a movie where they want action. I saw the final product and I was like, “Bryan, sh*t, I’m sorry. You were right about all that stuff.” Look, I’ve had far worse experiences on the spec scripts. I wrote Last Action Hero and I was fired the day they bought it. I wrote a script called Suspect Zero which is the only movie I’ve worked on that I’ve never seen just because it was so butchered. It hurts like sh*t and it’s really hard to deal with. It’s particularly hard when people criticize you for the exact thing. You’ll beg them to change some scene and they won’t do it and then all the reviewers will gang up on you saying, “This terrible scene written by Zak Penn.” If they didn’t pay well, it wouldn’t be worth it but that’s the thing. It’s a damn good career and who are we to complain. It’s the price of doing business. The only movies I feel 100% about are the ones I’ve directed myself. If you’ve seen Incident at Loch Ness, that’s the movie I wanted to make. If you don’t like it, that’s fine but I don’t have any excuses.