Punisher: War Zone red band trailer lives up to name

It’s red! Oh god, the red! Talk about living up to its name! An extended red-band (“R” rated) trailer for the new Punisher film, Punisher: War Zone has hit the web, and it thrashes blood at every opportunity. Clearly, the producers are hoping viewers will forget about the painfully mediocre first film by throwing blood bags at them. The end result looks like… well, like a missing trailer from Grindhouse.

To make matters more deliciously rumor-tastic, word has it that director Lexi Alexander has been unceremoniously removed from her own film, and that this reflects the dramatic shift in trailer direction (compare it to the first trailer, which lacked blood, crappy metal music and that faux-film age thing). The director was also notably absent from ComiCon, which many are reading into something fierce, and her website, which was full of intricate postings from behind the scenes of the shoot previously, has been stripped down and replaced by an ominous trio of monkeys. Uh oh.

What do you guys think? Is this trailer a sign that the new film is on sound footing, or hath something gone foul in the land of Castle? To me, that trailer looks like a piece of crap, but both Ray Stevenson (Rome) and Lexi Alexander (Green Street Hooligans) have some nice work under their belt. And Jimmy McNulty as freakin’ Jigsaw? That’s got to count for something.

(via FirstShowing.net)