SUBMITTED BY MaximusCD

January 29, 2004 —

Sci Fi Wire spoke to writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh about his upcoming The Punisher, which comes out this April.

Frank Castle (Thomas Jane), the central character in The Punisher, takes matters into his own hands when his family is murdered. He transforms himself into The Punisher, a gun-toting judge, jury and executioner who sets his sights on a particularly formidable villain, Howard Saint (John Travolta). Hensleigh, best known for writing The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Jumanji and Armageddon, makes his directorial debut with The Punisher, which hews closely to Garth Ennis' "Welcome Back, Frank" comic series.

"I had to ask myself intellectual questions like, 'To what extent do crimes against a person become so unconscionable, so heinous, that even a person who does not believe in vigilantism can resort to vigilantism in a more just way?'" Hensleigh said. "That was the equation for me. I told Marvel that I didn't just want to do a revenge story, that I wanted to do the mother of all revenge stories. I wanted to ramp everything up. I can't really go further without doing spoilers here. The underlying events that give rise to Frank Castle's vigilantism are not from the comic. I invented a lot of that. I made it a lot worse."

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