Fox Searchlight has released the teaser poster for the Clark Gregg‘s big screen adaption of Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk‘s Choke. The poster features a silhouette of Sam Rockwell choking on either Kelly Macdonal or Anjelica Huston. Either way I’m not sure I get the symbology, but it’s certainly a cool looking image.
You can read my fanboy review from Sundance or Mel Valentin’s review from SXSW. Fox Searchlight told us that Mel might actually be quoted in some of the pre-release advertising (“vulgar, crude, profane, blasphemous, obscene, and, best of all, hilarious” – Mel Valentin, SLASHFILM.COM).
Official Plot Synopsis: Victor Mancini (Rockwell), a sex-addicted med-school dropout, who keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida (Huston), in an expensive private medical hospital by working days as a historical reenactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park. At night Victor runs a scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor enlists the aid of his best friend, Denny (Henke) and his mother’s beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall (Macdonald), to solve the mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever. The film is adapted from the best-selling, critically acclaimed novel by Chuck Palahniuk.
Choke will open in theaters on September 26th 2008.
source: Fox Searchlight via IMPAwards
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Fox Searchlight has just informed us that the big screen adaptation of Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk‘s Choke has been pushed back to September 26th 2008. When the company snapped up the film for a hefty $5 million at Sundance, they immediately announced an August 1st release date.
The last Friday of July/first Friday of August is Fox Searchlight’s magic date. They opened films like Little Miss Sunshine and Garden State in that calendar spot to much success. The plan usually is to open the film in a couple markets, slowly expand throughout August, and open wide in September. But for some reason, Searchlight has decided to move the release back to late September. And this might not be a bad move. This will give Choke breathing room from the other high-buzz late Summer indie releases like American Teen, Towelhead and The Wackness. Palahnuik also has a huge young adult following, so opening the film up right after College is back in session might help the film’s marketing strategy.
Official Plot Synopsis: Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a sex-addicted med-school dropout, keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida (Anjelica Huston), in an expensive private mental hospital by working days as a historical reenactor. At night he runs a scam where he deliberately chokes in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid moment, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor must enlist the aid of his best friend, Denny (Brad William Henke), a recovering chronic masturbator, and his mother’s beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), to solve this mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever.
Chuck Palahniuk fans rejoice!
Fox Searchlight, who just picked up the rights to Clark Gregg‘s big screen adaptation of Choke for $5 Million, has announced that the film will hit theaters on:
August 1st 2008
Yeah, I know, seven months is a long time to wait. But hey, look on the bright side, it’s getting a release by Fox Searchlight. That almost guarantees that the film will platform into your neck of the woods sooner or later.
Directed by: Clark Gregg
Written by: Clark Gregg, adapted from the novel by Chuck Palahniuk
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly Macdonald, Brad Henke, Clark Gregg
Plot Synopsis: Victor Mancini, a sex-addicted med-school dropout, keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida, in an expensive private mental hospital by working days as a historical reenactor. At night he runs a scam where he deliberately chokes in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid moment, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor must enlist the aid of his best friend, Denny, a recovering chronic masturbator, and his mother’s beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall, to solve this mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever.
As you probably know, I’m a huge fan of Chuck Palahniuk, best known as the author of Fight Club. I’ve attended, god knows how many of his public events over the years, and got the chance to sit down with Palahniuk in Park City Utah at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival to talk about the big screen adaptation of his novel Choke. The photo above was taken at the Choke premiere, the night before this interview. Palahniuk leaned his head across mine right before the flash. “Congratulations, now you have syphilis.” he added. Fans of the author will surely recognize his patented sense of humor.
Palahniuk chats with me about the big screen adaptation of Choke, Heath Ledger – who had died hours earlier and had been at one time attached to the project, the progress of future big screen adaptions including Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Diary and Lullaby, some of the stuff he loved from the film, an idea he wish they had used, and his upcoming book Snuff. Enjoy!
Peter Sciretta: I loved the movie, could you talk a little bit about the process of getting it made. I know it was a really long strugle.
Chuck Palahniuk: Yeah. They had the option for a long time. I talked to Gregg Clark on and off about what he might put into the screenplay, what he might cut. And having a screenplay is like having another draft. So all the sort of spirit of the stairway things that you wanted to put in, but you didn’t think of them until a month after the manuscript went to press…
Peter: Well you said that about the ending of Fight Club, didn’t you?
Palahniuk: You know, I had the back and fourth but the ending was entirely David’s. But I knew that David had to bring up the romance at the end so I could understand why he did. In the same way I can remember why Clark left the stone house stoning scene out. Because there is only so much that can go in a movie before it becomes overload.
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The production notes for the big screen adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk‘s Choke includes an extensive interview with director/screenwriter/co-star Clark Gregg. Read the interview below. Check back tomorrow for my exclusive interview with Chuck.
Adapting Choke
What exactly drew you to the book?
When I was given the book I was aware of Chuck. I had loved Fight Club. When I read Choke, I couldn’t put my finger on it. My mother is not Ida and I never worked in a colonial village, but there was something about it that felt painfully familiar and really unusual in the way it represented sexuality as another thing — that is a consumer obsession in this country — and it worked for me on those political levels.  At the same time I found it to be a really heartbreaking story about how people recover from emotional trauma in their lives and that makes them able to give and receive love. I think in retrospect I didn’t realize how difficult a balancing act it would be to adapt something and make it work on those trenchant dramatic levels and still have it be funny, because the other main thing that I loved about it was I never read anything that I found so painful and yet also so funny. I think this guy’s got more clever, brilliant, satirical ideas and his finger on the pulse of what works and doesn’t work in this country. There is something about the compassion in his disaffected voice that really strikes a chord for a lot of people.
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My editor, Peter, has the Chuck Palahniuk adaptation Choke stashed in a lil’ box inside the fridge that is /Film, but he’s givin’ ‘er at Sundance (yep, it’s premiering there), so I’m raiding it. A “Meet the Filmmakers” Sundance Channel video with Choke‘s first-time director, Clark Gregg, can now be seen after the jump.
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The two movies I’m most excited to see at Sundance this year are Morgan Spurlock’s Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden and the big screen adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk‘s (author of Fight Club) novel Choke. Collider has gotten their hands on eight new production photos from the film. Check out the photos after the jump. As always, click to enlarge.
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Two days ago I posted the first production photo from Choke, which premieres January at Sundance. But my posting was more of a rant about one of author Chuck Palahniuk’s other novels. Everyone knows about Fight Club (despite the first rule…), and everyone has seen David Fincher’s film adaptation, but what you probably don’t know is that Palahniuk wrote a book called Survivor that is arguably better than Fight Club.
Survivor was being fast tracked for the big screen, but September 11th happened, and plot similarities put the project in development hell (you can read the history behind the failed film adaptation here). Online petitions were signed, Fox listened, and Chuck even announced at book signings that development work on the film had begun again. But not long after, it was reported that the project had fell back into development heck.
I’m writing to you today my friends to report some great news. I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence is back on the project.
“I’m working on the book Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk that I’m working on with a friend,” Lawrence said this weekend at the I Am Legend junket. “It’s a great book. I love that book. So we’ve been working on that.”
So it appears the project is not dead after all. Francis Lawrence has a couple other projects in development:
- “Snow and the Seven” a 19th century re-telling of Snow White
- A pilot for NBC called “Kings”, David and Goliath in modern day New York City
But it sounds like he is actively working on an adaptation of Palahniuk’s book, and that makes me ecstatic.
Here is the plot description from the Book’s cover:
From the author of the cult sensation Fight Club (now a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter) comes Survivor.
“A turbo-charged, deliciously manic satire of contemporary American life.” –Newsday
“The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage,” according to the “been there, done that” wisdom of Tender Branson, last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult. At the opening of Chuck Palahniuk’s hilariously unnerving second novel, Tender is cruising on autopilot, 39,000 feet up, dictating the whole of his life story into Flight 2039′s “black box” in the final moments before crashing into the vast Australian outback.
Not since Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night has there been as dark and telling a satire on the wages of fame and the bedrock lunacy of the modern world. Wickedly incisive and mesmerizing, Survivor is Chuck Palahniuk at his deadpan peak.
“Mordant…one’s sympathy for the improbable, doomed hero is fully engaged.” –The New Yorker
“A wild amphetamine ride through the vagaries of fame and the nature of belief.”–The San Francisco Chronicle
“Convoluted, maniacally comic, partaking deeply of the America that streams towrd us in the dead of night from the cable channels–that place of outrageous expectation, slavish idolatry, fanatic consumerism, and mind-stopping banality.” –Sven Birkerts, Esquire
source: Collider
