Thoughts?
Showing posts with label book adaptation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book adaptation. Show all posts
Could Leonardo DiCaprio be in Todd Field's long awaited next film?
The Playlist seems to think so:As we mentioned in a Where Have They Been? feature we ran a few months ago, dramatist Todd Field has been missing from the world of cinema since 2006’s sardonic suburban drama, “Little Children.”
Consequentially, the three-time Academy Award-nominated director/writer (and actor) has been sorely missed; adaptations of Cormac McCarthy‘s “Blood Meridian” could never gain much traction even under the aegis of “The Social Network” producer Scott Rudin.
This could all change thanks to one of the most commercially viable actors on the planet who is said to be circling the project.
According to the LA Times, Leonardo DiCaprio has suddenty sprouted interest in “The Creed of Violence,” a Western-ish project is based off Boston Teran‘s novel and takes place in Mexico 1910, during the Mexican Revolution and focuses on the American intervention in the war.
Whether Field remains attached to this project three years on is unclear, and calls to Universalspokespeople—where the project currently lays its head—have not been returned. However, a reader recently pointed us in the direction of the Lee Filters camera company Tumblr page that featured a page of photographs recently taken by Field during location scouting in Durango and Veracruz, Mexico. So it certainly seems that Field is deep into development.
Like Will Smith, DiCaprio is one of those rare breed of A-list actors who can convince almost any studio (save possibly Warner Bros.) to green light any relatively dormant project such as this one. Having him behind this project is certainly exciting.
However, this is isn’t all Todd Field has on his plate. He already has a second project set up over at Universal, the heist-gone-wrong picture “Hubris,” which focuses on a group of unfortunate would-be criminals that decide to rob the wrong mobster (Michael Mann is developing “Big Tuna,” a separate and different project that follows the same gangster). DiCaprio’s next big gig is Quentin Tarantino‘s “Django Unchained,” where he’ll play a malevolent and racist plantation owner opposite Jamie Foxx and Samuel L. Jackson.
-Joey's Two Cents: I'm just excited to see Field potentially back in action...thoughts?
Mimi Leder will direct All Quiet on the Western Front?
Apparently so, according to Deadline:Mimi Leder has signed on to direct All Quiet on the Western Front, an adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s WWI novel that was previously turned into the 1930 film that won a Best Picture Oscar and another for director Lewis Milestone. The novel is about the intense and terrifying action of 1918 trench warfare that traumatizes a young and idealistic German soldier on the Western front. The script is by Ian Stokell and Lesley Paterson. They will produce through their Sliding Down Rainbows Entertainment shingle. They have also come up with part of the funding, Leder told me.
Leder, whose feature credits include Deep Impact and The Peacemaker, just completed directing the season finale of Luck, the HBO series that stars Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte, with Michael Mann and David Milch exec producing. She hadn't read the novel or seen the original film when she was sent the WWI script by Stokell and Paterson, but was struck by how the themes of disillusion and loss of humanity during ferocious fighting hadn't lost its relevance despite the period setting.
"Even though the original film was made in 1930 at the advent of the talkies, I was moved by its depiction of the terrible senseless brutality of war," Leder said. "With this version, most of it takes place in the last 24 hours of the war. WWI fighting was brutal, hand-to-hand and ugly, and it practically wiped out a generation of young men. What is so compelling is the catastrophic levels of violence, this mind-numbing savagery, and what happens to a boy who in the journey to becoming a man has to become an animal. War destroys the humanity of this young man, stripping away his ability to feel, and making him act like a beast. Taken with the emotionality of how this young boy joined the war out of nationalism as many of our boys do to keep America safe, there is a message here about what happens to them and the politicians who are making war. It's alarming how little this has changed. There is an opportunity to make a great film about war, but it is also an anti-war film, an un-romanticized version of war and its consequences."
Leder said the goal is to start production in late 2012, possibly in Europe. "We need a battlefield and an old village, so we'll go where the financing takes us," Leder told me. She's repped by CAA and Industry Entertainment.
-Joey's Two Cents: I'm a big Deep Impact fan, so I'll give this a shot...thoughts?
Harrison Ford to play Wyatt Earp!
From The Hollywood Reporter:With Cowboys & Aliens premiering tonight at Comic-Con,Harrison Ford has attached himself to another cowboy role, though this one comes with an interesting twist.
Ford is attached to star as an aging Wyatt Earp in Black Hats, an adaptation of a Max Allan Collins novel being produced by Thunder Road's Basil Iwanyk and Jason Netter of Kickstart Productions.
Kurt Johnstad, who co-wrote 300 and is co-writing its sequel,300: The Battle of Artemisia, has been tapped to pen the adaptation.
Black Hats blends fact with fiction in its telling of the story involving an older Earp, the one who spent his last years as a private detective and movie consultant in Los Angeles. The spin involves Earp learning that his friend and compatriot Doc Holliday had a son, now living in Prohibition-era New York City. While Holliday is long dead, the son has gotten himself in trouble with a rising mobster, Al Capone.
Earp teams up with Bat Masterson, one of his former deputies and now noted sportswriter for the New York Morning Telegraph, to take on the gang in what becomes a tale of six-shooters versus tommy guns.
Collins wrote the book, published in 2007, under the pseudonym of Patrick Culhane. The author, known in comic circles for creating private eye heroine Ms Tree and writing Batman stories, wrote the graphic novel Road to Perdition, later adapted into a 2002 gangster movie directed by Sam Mendesstarring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law.
Netter brought the book to Iwanyk, who showed it to Ford, with the actor sparking to the idea of an old gunfighter with his .45 walking the streets of 1920s Big Apple.
The producers aim to develop and package the project before approaching studios. Brazilian company RT is paying for the script and development, with RT principals Fernando Loureiro and Rodrigo Teixeria also taking on producer roles.
Iwanyk, who was a producer on The Town and Clash of the Titans, is currently in production on the latter¹s sequel and is also developing the remake of A Star is Born, to which Beyonce Knowles is attached to star.
Netter and his comic-centric Kickstart, along with Neal Moritz, last week set up comic book adaptation The Red Star at Warner Bros. Netter was a producer on the 2007 Angelina Jolie comic book movieWanted.
Johnstad, repped by WME, Untitled, and Parseghian/Planco, also wrote The Last Photograph, a drama that has Christian Bale and Sean Penn attached to star.
Ford, repped by UTA, is notoriously choosy for this roles and is not one to haphazardly develop projects that he may or may not do. In Cowboys & Aliens he stars as a land baron who teams up withDaniel Craig to fight aliens in the Old West in the Jon Favreau-directed tentpole. The movie premieres tonight at Comic-Con.
Ford is attached to star as an aging Wyatt Earp in Black Hats, an adaptation of a Max Allan Collins novel being produced by Thunder Road's Basil Iwanyk and Jason Netter of Kickstart Productions.
Kurt Johnstad, who co-wrote 300 and is co-writing its sequel,300: The Battle of Artemisia, has been tapped to pen the adaptation.
Black Hats blends fact with fiction in its telling of the story involving an older Earp, the one who spent his last years as a private detective and movie consultant in Los Angeles. The spin involves Earp learning that his friend and compatriot Doc Holliday had a son, now living in Prohibition-era New York City. While Holliday is long dead, the son has gotten himself in trouble with a rising mobster, Al Capone.
Earp teams up with Bat Masterson, one of his former deputies and now noted sportswriter for the New York Morning Telegraph, to take on the gang in what becomes a tale of six-shooters versus tommy guns.
Collins wrote the book, published in 2007, under the pseudonym of Patrick Culhane. The author, known in comic circles for creating private eye heroine Ms Tree and writing Batman stories, wrote the graphic novel Road to Perdition, later adapted into a 2002 gangster movie directed by Sam Mendesstarring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law.
Netter brought the book to Iwanyk, who showed it to Ford, with the actor sparking to the idea of an old gunfighter with his .45 walking the streets of 1920s Big Apple.
The producers aim to develop and package the project before approaching studios. Brazilian company RT is paying for the script and development, with RT principals Fernando Loureiro and Rodrigo Teixeria also taking on producer roles.
Iwanyk, who was a producer on The Town and Clash of the Titans, is currently in production on the latter¹s sequel and is also developing the remake of A Star is Born, to which Beyonce Knowles is attached to star.
Netter and his comic-centric Kickstart, along with Neal Moritz, last week set up comic book adaptation The Red Star at Warner Bros. Netter was a producer on the 2007 Angelina Jolie comic book movieWanted.
Johnstad, repped by WME, Untitled, and Parseghian/Planco, also wrote The Last Photograph, a drama that has Christian Bale and Sean Penn attached to star.
Ford, repped by UTA, is notoriously choosy for this roles and is not one to haphazardly develop projects that he may or may not do. In Cowboys & Aliens he stars as a land baron who teams up withDaniel Craig to fight aliens in the Old West in the Jon Favreau-directed tentpole. The movie premieres tonight at Comic-Con.
-Joey's Two Cents: As long as he doesn't look asleep and cranky, I'm happy to have him in any movie...thoughts?
Behold the Red Band Trailer for Drive!
Take a look:
-Joey's Two Cents: I'm very excited for this one...thoughts?
Universal passes on ambitious adaptation of The Dark Tower...
From Variety:Universal has officially placed the ambitious multiplatform franchise The Dark Tower in turnaround. Variety first reported that the studio had second thoughts about the film and TV project from Akiva Goldsman and helmer Ron Howard on May 5, when the studio began mulling a turnaround.
Tower involved a television show that would have continued the narrative in between three movies, all based on Steven King's seven-novel series (King has completed an eighth, The Wind Through the Keyhole, set for publication in 2012).
Howard unveiled plans for The Dark Tower adaptation last September. Universal soon came on as a distributor, thanks to Imagine's production deal with the studio; NBC (or an affiliated cable net) was expected carry the TV component.
By April, scribe Mark Verheiden was brought on board to write the TV show along with Goldsman.
No financier has officially signed on to the project, but Warner Bros. could be a likely option since the studio is home to Goldsman's Weed Road Pictures shingle.
Imagine Entertainment's Brian Grazer and Goldsman were set to produce while Javier Bardem was attached to star.
Howard is expected to still helm the project if the studio shops it elsewhere and it finds a new home.
"We know that this is an incredibly ambitious undertaking, but we continue to be excited about it," Imagine's Michael Rosenberg told Variety. "We'll explore all avenues for financing to see if we can ultimately make this project."
Though U declined to comment on the reasons behind the pass, sources said the franchise simply came at too high a price. The unprecedented package would have taken the franchise model to a new level, and sources said U's issues were financial, not creative.
King's Dark Tower epic has been long pursued for screen adaptation, but the series' length and scope -- rooted in a post-Apocalyptic realm resembling the Old West as well a parallel modern-day world -- has been a tough nut to crack for scripting and production planning. Before Imagine announced its adaptation plans, J.J. Abrams and "Lost" co-creator exec producer Damon Lindelof had optioned rights from King for $19 (a key number in the Tower universe). But they weren't able to find a take on the material that satisfied their ambitions.
Universal also has at least two other big-budget films in the works: the Keanu Reeves-toplined 47 Ronin and Battleship.