Francis Ford Coppola Shooting 'Twixt Now And Sunrise' With Val Kilmer Starring

I'm so happy that Francis Ford Coppola is making movies once more. I'm less concerned with the fact that neither Youth Without Youth or Tetro were home runs than with the fact that the director is making movies consistently, and making them on his own terms. If he keeps going, chances are we'll get another very good one out of him, and that's worth waiting for.

So I'm thrilled to hear that Mr. Copppola has quietly begun production on Twixt Now And Sunrise, a "thriller with overtones of horror" that stars Val Kilmer, Elle Fanning (isn't she shooting Super 8?) and Bruce Dern.

Deadline says the script centers around Val Kilmer's character, a horror novelist. He reportedly funded the film independently, and is working from a script based on his own short story. Deadline does not specify whether the shooting script is also an FFC original.

The last time the director made anything like a horror picture the result was Bram Stoker's Dracula. That was a well-intentioned and beautifully designed film that was miscast six ways from Sunday. It's only watchable with the sound off, so the miscasting is easier to ignore. And yet I'll still be eager to see what comes of this. (I'm already having images of other films that work with horror novelists or books: The Ninth Gate, The Dark Half and In the Mouth of Madness. I mention those more to dismiss them for the moment; we don't know enough to assume this would really be similar to any of them.)

Also great: Val Kilmer starring. Don't agree? Think it's been too long since he was great in a film? Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was not that long ago, and he's magnificent in it. He was good in Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant, and quite entertaining in MacGruber. Anything that gives him a chance to be front and center is worth waiting for, as far as I'm concerned.