Matt Damon has been planning his directorial debut for months now — the film would be one he wrote with John Krasinski, based on a timely story that Krasinski cooked up with Dave Eggers. But just this week Damon backed out of directing the film, because scheduling issues, personal and professional, made the project impossible for him.
But the currently untitled film will still get made, and with Damon in the starring role. Krasinski will co-star, with he and Damon playing “rival corporate executives” in what is being called a Capraesque story. And now, Gus Van Sant will direct. Read More »
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For the past few months Matt Damon has been planning to direct his first feature film, a currently untitled movie with a story concocted by John Krasinski and Dave Eggers, and with a script by Krasinski and Damon. The story is that Damon would play a salesman who shows up in a small town, and the upheaval that results.
Now it looks like Damon won’t direct the film after all, though in a slightly strange set of conditions, he could still star in the film. Read More »
This summer Dave Eggers published his non-fiction book Zeitoun, an account of a New Orleans family experiencing Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Abdulrahman Zeitoun stayed in the city after the floods, using his canoe to get about the city in order to help people and it is his testimony, gathered via interviews, that herein provides Eggers material and, to a large extent, voice. It was a stealth publication, in the sense that nobody had much heard of it until shortly before it hit shelves, but Eggers commands a loyal fan base, for his whole McSweeney’s line as much as for himself, so it was eagerly received.
One fan who leapt right into it was Jonathan Demme, who had been a follower of Eggers work since his son introduced him to What is the What. Demme had himself directed a series of films on post-Katrina New Orleans called Right to Return: New Home Movies From the Lower 9th Ward. If you ask me, he’s absolutely the only director who would see a film in this book and then go on to realise it appropriately.
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Amazon are now taking pre-orders for The Wild Things, Dave Eggers‘ novel “based loosely on the storybook by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay cowritten with Spike Jonze“. The hardback is set to street in October, just ahead of the Where the Wild Things Are movie. Jonze’ film must be one of my most anticipated pictures of the year, and to think… well, to think how close we were to losing it for a while.
You might want the standard edition
hardback, or perhaps a fur-covered edition
. After the break, the full official blurb, as well as Eggers on the hows, whys and wherefores of this particular evolution of the story.
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Last week it was reported that Tom Tykwer (The International, Run Lola Run) was working on an adaptation of Cloud Atlas for The Wachowski Brothers. But that isn’t the only thing he’s working on. Tykwer told our friends at Film School Rejects that he is also working on an adaptation of Dave Eggers‘ 2006 novel What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, a story loosely based on the real life story of Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee and member of the Lost Boys of Sudan program.
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Here is a round up of stories that just didn’t make the /Film front page, or what we like to call…. Page 2!
The Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull billboards in Los Angeles are out of control. [Rejects]
Louis Leterrier is downplaying The Incredible Hulk dispute with actor/screenwriter Edward Norton and Marvel: “It’s so unsettling, because it’s not true.” [Sci-Fi]
Joe Carnahan will be shooting a big portion of Killing Pablo in Colombia, “which is really the only place you should make that film.”
Empire Magazine has new photos from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Joel Silver says the Wachowski Brothers have ideas for Speed Racer and Ninja Assassin sequels. Let’s wait for the first films to be released and or filmed before we start talking about sequels, please. [Collider]
Enter to win the One Missed Call sweepstakes.
Cinematical has the poster for The Duplass Brother’s Sundance hit Baghead.
LatinoReview has a script review of Chris Bertolini’s Battle: Los Angeles which was recently picked up by Columbia and is set to shoot sometime this year: “Uninspired, predictable, logic-defying ending.”
Virginia Madsen has signed on to co-star in the Amelia Earhart biopic Amelia for Fox Searchlight. Snor. [Variety]
Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy) has replaced Thomas Kretschmann as the voice of Johann Kraus in Hellboy II: The Golden Army. [CS]
The Pixar Story will be released on DVD in June. [pixarblog]
STYD has the poster for The Strangers, Rogue Pictures’ home invasion film starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman.
Marvel Comics announced that it will publish a comic-book series based on Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game book series. [scifi]
Michael Moore has announced his support for Barack Obama, which is expected considering he slammed Clinton in SiCKO?
Production has started in Connecticut this week on an untitled contemporary comedy directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes (American Beauty) from an original screenplay by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. [CS]
There was an instance where I was arrested at a student protest and it would have been great if Forest Whitaker had suddenly appeared to passionately articulate and argue my case to the police rather than the guy who yelled, “Dude! Run! No! Don’t!” Whitaker, who plays one of the main Wild Things in in the notoriously delayed and troubled Where the Wild Things Are, is backing the film’s director, Spike Jonze, and the flick 100 percent. Good to see, innit? So, is the film really too scary and mature for kids as test audiences have reported? Here’s what Whitaker, who saw the film with his children aged 9, 13, and 16, just told MTV…
“I play Ira, he puts the holes in the trees,” the Oscar-winner grinned. “I have a wife and kid, and we’re the only family unit inside [the land of the Wild Things]. It’s a good movie. I saw an early cut of it. I brought my kids to see it, and I was really impressed.”
And then he got all deep….
“[The dark scenes] are the point of the movie, and I hope that they maintain that point, because I think children can identify with a character who is upset. …[Max] rolls by himself, no father figure; this is a single family home,” he continued, with passion. “His mother ends up having a boyfriend that becomes like a monster to him…people have to build trust with the people their parent starts to date…These are real issues that the character deals with, and I hope that [the filmmakers] continue to explore them, because kids need to see that; they need to see that other kids are dealing with it.”
“The thing is, it’s one thing to read [scary stuff] in a book, but when you see an itty-bitty kid running alongside a 10-foot-giant on the side of a cliff, it gets intense. But that’s the point, because we’re representing the things inside of the kid. They represent his struggles, either him being too angry or being confused, or not feeling like he belongs. They’re a gargantuan extension of the way he’s feeling inside.”
Whitaker said he’s going to give Jonze a ring and see what the deal is with the ambitious and pricey ($75 mill) kid’s film. As we previously reported, Warner Bros. has now a set the film’s release date for October 2009; you know, that’s only 19 months to go. Jonze hasn’t released any more statements for the picture after identifying the early test footage that hit the Net back in February to oooh’s, ahhh’s and hmmm’s. Let’s hope Warner Bros. takes the Oscar winner’s opinion into consideration, and don’t let your support fall by the wayside either.
Sabotage!?! There’s incredibly weird, and increasingly depressing, buzz coming off Spike Jonze‘s Where the Wild Things Are, and now Chud reports that execs at Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures are considering reshooting the entire $75 million friggin’ movie! This news, of course, comes on top of the rather cool test footage that leaked last weekend, and the rather subdued statement Jonze released yesterday concerning the early footage. There are even wild rumors circulating more and more in the industry that Jonze might take his name off the project, and Devin’s report at Chud doesn’t persuade against that speculation. This is serious, people. Take this excerpt for example…
“Yet I’m hearing that just such a massive reshoot is what is on the table right now. And it’s not because of technical issues, unless you want to consider the lead kid actor and the script technical issues. Sources tell me that the suits at Legendary and Warner Bros are not happy with Max Records, the actor playing Max, the mischievous boy who is crowned King of the Wild Things. Worse than that, they don’t like the film’s tone and want to go back to the script drawing board, possibly losing the Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers script when they do it. Apparently the film is too weird and ‘too scary,’ and the character of Max is being seen as not likable.”
It’s not yet in the open whether Jonze has final cut on the children’s flick. If so, and if this news is well-founded, that could mean a major tug-o-war with execs and possibly end up with Jonze removed from the project altogether. With his former girlfriend, Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, doing the soundtrack and a tight-knit crew, that would be one ballsy move by WB. Do they really want to play knock the hipsters off the island? Jus’ sayin’.
Of course, Jonze’s statement yesterday mentioned no such drama, but he didn’t release an elated in-progress statement like James Cameron just did below, either. Early audience reports from test screenings late last year were prototypically alarming, calling the film “dark,” “not suitable for small children,” complaining about “some desert place” et al. But Maurice Sendak‘s book is, as many /Film commenters have smartly pointed out, about monsters, imagination and the free realm where kids play. Sendak is also said to be on board as a consultant to Jonze and co-screenwriter Dave Eggers on the film, and Eggers, the co-founder of McSweeney’s and a literary darling, is even writing a spin-off novel to accompany the film.
This chic house of cards would lend credence to Spike and Co. staying with the project, which has been delayed until 2009 due to reported visual effects difficulties pertaining to the Wild Things’ faces (the Jim Henson Company created their costumes). But, what if, just what if…
More on this (and probable Free Spike Jonze t-shirts) as it develops. In the meantime…
Discuss: If this is true, tell Warner Brothers what you think! They are listening. Do you want a version of WTWTA on par with traditional family fare like 2003′s The Cat and the Hat and A VeggieTales Movie?
