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20 Oct
| Hollywood loves Akiva Goldsman. No surprise. He’s a geek at heart, and these days geeks make money. He’s able to marry that sensibility with an approach that brings in adult audiences (The Da Vinci Code) and even wins awards (A Beautiful Mind). And yet a lot of us have a real mistrust of the writer, not even thanks to his credit on the execrable Batman and Robin, but for being the driving force behind turds like I Am Legend and I, Robot. Now Goldsman is ready to move into his next venture, directing, and he’s got a project in mind, and a few big comic book properties already on his plate. Winter’s Tale, the novel by Mark Helprin, is the story Goldsman is eyeing to direct. The LA Times reports that the 1983 novel set in an alternate New York is the writer/producer’s favorite novel. Winter’s Tale has a strange similarity … |
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19 Oct
| The novel American Rust is on track to be turned into a film, and while the subject matter and tone are called “unrelentingly downbeat,” reporting on the forward movement gives me hope. Because I see a cousin to films like Days of Heaven in this story of friends trying to escape both an accidental murder and their a decaying Pennsylvania town. With the writer/director duo behind The Motorcycle Diaries tackling the book, I hope the eventual film will have some of the same uncanny beauty that made the downbeat films of several decades back so great. Variety reports that Walter Salles and Jose Rivera are attached to direct and write the script from Philipp Meyer’s debut novel. Scott Stuber is producing and he’s got a first-look deal with Universal, though if the book and eventual film are as downbeat as most say, I’d be surprised if Universal picked up the … |
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17 Oct
| What the world needs now is another vampire movie like I need two holes in my neck. Of course, it’s going to get one, and a whole lot more than one. Perhaps the most interesting one on the cards, however, is a big screen adaptation of Moira Buffini’s play A Vampire Story to be called Byzantium. The play was commissioned as part of the NT Connections program in London last year and I’m not even the tiniest bit surprised the movie adaptation is coming. The official synopsis follows after the break. Bear in mind that this is the official synopsis of the stage play, and the eventual film could be anywhere from identical to radically altered. It also gets into light spoiler territory after the second paragraph. |
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17 Oct
| With the revelation of a tie-in book for Dreamworks’ next CG toon How to Train Your Dragon comes our first real sniff at the film’s human characters. Get a good look at them all after the break, just to reconfirm your Pixar bias. Also note that the book promises “Cool 3D images” and a “3D movie viewer”, which sound intriguing. What on earth will this “movie viewer” be? I’ll be blowed if I know but I really do want to find out. So, here’s the book cover in all its glory. Are those twins fighting on the right of the image? I think we can quite clearly see who the hero, slightly feisty love interest, fat friend and snarling antagonist are. Doesn’t look too promising does it? Somewhat tired, to say the least. If the source stories are anything to go by, the hero is called Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. Perhaps more surprising than … |
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16 Oct
| Obviously, the staff at /Film collectively views Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are with a certain reverence. The film is simply a win all around, tastefully exploring and modernizing the notions of imaginative nostalgia and vice versa that are so often exploited these days in the name of “geekdom” and “hipsterdom.” On a related note, I’ve always found it a bit profound that Ain’t It Cool and Vice magazine were started within two years of one another (‘96 and ‘94, respectively); both went on to make a positive, DIY impact on culture in the aughts unlike anything in new media this side of negative influencers like Matt Drudge and Rupert Murdoch. Back then, I remember thinking that Austin’s Harry Knowles was fat off movies (and ’shrooms?) and the Brooklyn staff at Vice was lithe off drugs and deadlines, but there was something in common: they both ignored Old Media … |
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16 Oct
| Note: The following will contain minor spoilers for the movie Where The Wild Things Are and will assume that you know the plot of the book it’s based on. Let’s get this out of the way: Where The Wild Things Are is not a film for everyone. While Warner Bros. might hope to position this as a kids’ film, it lacks many of the trappings you might expect from the genre; Max doesn’t go on some grand quest with the Wild Things and, just like the book, not that much changes in the real world by the time you reach the end of the story. Even the aesthetic of the world, laden with its warm yet monochromatic look, doesn’t lend itself to conventional notions of whimsy. But what the film lacks in convention, it makes up for faithfully capturing many elements of the childhood experience, complete with its resplendent wonder as … |
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16 Oct
| Will Ferrell is set to star in a $10 million independent dramedy, Everything Must Go, based on a work by renown, late short story author Raymond Carver entitled “Why Don’t You Dance.” The project marks the feature debut of newcomer Dan Rush, a former commercials director whose screenplay for Everything was included on last year’s insidery Black List. Ferrell will play “a relapsed alcoholic” who loses his job, and naturally, his wife gives the heave-hoe too, leaving the character to launch a four-day yard sale on their lawn. The character’s main objective: generating quick beer money. Script Shadow via Playlist has called it his “favorite script” (ever?) and is totally perplexed at the casting. His worries revolve around a hypothetical that sees a studio re-cutting the film to heighten the comedic aspects. Shadow concludes with, “but there’s some real weight to this character and I think we’ve seen from Will Ferrell in the … |
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16 Oct
| This weekend, Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are finally hits movie theaters after two and a half years of post production craziness. A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit down wth another one of my favorite filmmakers, Spike Jonze, to talk about the struggle to bring this children’s book to the big screen. Topics we go over in the 22 minute interview include the “death” of the music video director (or the dawn of the Internet filmmaker), the urge to make short films after such a long shoot, the incredible soundtrack, the task of turning a very short book into a feature film, how everyone has a personal connection to the book more akin to a poem, not writing a movie for an audience, age group, or demographic, how expectations can and will effect the audience’s reaction, is this Spike’s most personal film, the decision … |
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15 Oct
| A month ago at the Telluride Film Festival, the UK crime trilogy Red Riding played to good critical reception. The reception didn’t escape the notice of studio execs, and Columbia has picked up the rights to remake the trilogy. The studio is negotiating a deal to have Steve Zaillian script the remake for Ridley Scott to direct. Add one more to Ridley’s towering ‘in development’ pile! Variety reports that Scott and Zaillian are producing through their respective companies (Scott Free and Film Rites, respectively). Zaillian and Scott have worked together on two released films, Hannibal and American Gangster, and Scott has frequently praised Zaillian’s work. Not mentioned is whether this would be one film or more. The UK series adapts four novels into three films, and the whole point is that the series is rather epic. Condensing down to one film would miss the point entirely. But does Ridley Scott really … |
Animated Series From Jonah Hill Greenlit by Fox. William H. Macy Drama, Shameless, Set for Showtime.
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15 Oct
| Last week, we discussed the surprising, albeit less surreal in 2009, news that Fox had picked up an animated TV pilot based on the characters of subversive comic book legend Peter Bagge. Today, the network has greenlit another new animated series, this one from Jonah Hill, who will co-write, provide voice work, and executive produce. Details after the jump… A title for the series was not announced in the trades, but a logline was released. The lead character is “a 7-year-old socialite who acts and talks like an adult—and finds himself out of his element when forced to attend public school.” Though in its own way, Mike Judge and Fox’s King of the Hill (now concluded) was ahead of its time in this arena, you gotta love a new wave of depression-era shows referencing class and wealth in America, including the other series discussed below. It wasn’t specified whether Hill would voice the rich … |
