Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke Gets a Greenlight, Sam Rockwell to Star
Chuck Palahniuk is the biggest untapped resource producing books today. His breakthrough novel Fight Club, was made into one of the most brilliant films of the last 10 years. Yet none of his other novels have gone into production since, Until now.
According to the author’s official fansite (a great site about not just Chuck but also authors and writing), Choke has finally been given the greenlight. Sam Rockwell is set to star, and first-timer Clark Gregg will be directing.
Gregg is an actor who has done a lot of bit parts in television shows (The West Wing, The New Adventures of Old Christine) and movies (Hoot, In the Land of Women) over the last 20 years. He wrote What Lies Beneath for director Robert Zemeckis. Gregg adapted Choke into screenplay form and has been championing the project for several years now. According to the author, the mom is most likely Glenn Close, Annette Benning or Juliana Moore.
I’m glad to see that another one of his books has finally been given a chance. Although, I wish it were Survivor - which was set to go into production before, well, that day. You see, Survivor’s main character is a terrorist who hijacks a plane and… yeah, that project is way dead. But it’s definitely my favorite Palahniuk novel (underneath Fight Club, of course).
If you never want to read Choke, than don’t pick it up in a book store and start reading the first chapter. It might very well be the best opening chapter in terms of sucking you in.
Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. Victor grew up while going from one foster home to another. Victor’s mother was found to be unfit to raise Victor. Several times throughout his childhood his mother would kidnap him from his foster parents. They would eventually be caught and he would again be remanded over to the government child welfare agency.
In the present day setting of the book, Victor is now a man in his mid-twenties who left medical school in order to find work to support his mother who is now in a nursing home. He cannot afford the care that his mother is receiving so he resorts to being a con man. His “con” is to go to restaurants and midway through his meal, he forces himself to choke on his food. When some good Samaritan comes over to perform the Heimlich maneuver, he spits the food out and thanks them for saving his life. He keeps a detailed list of everyone who saves him and sends them frequent letters about fictional bills he is unable to pay. The people feel so sorry for him that they give him money, send him cards and letters asking about him how he’s doing, and even continue to send him money to help him with the bills.
We reported last year that Universal has acquired the rights to the book, so one must assume they are the studio moving the film into production.
Gore Verbinski To Leave Pirates of The Caribbean 4? Robert Zemeckis to direct Mars Needs Moms!
Johnny Depp has told Disney that he would be willing to return for a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean, but now word comes that director Gore Verbinski (who helmed the three previous films) is uninterested in helming the project.
“Gore’s sick of pirates. If I wrote a scene that had to be shot on water, he’d run the other way.,” said Mars Needs Moms! author Berkeley Breathed on a recent book tour appearance.
What does he know? Berkeley and Gore have been working together to adapt Breathed’s 2003 children’s book, Flawed Dogs: The Year End Leftovers at the Piddleton “Last Chance” Dog Pound into a Computer Animated movie for Disney.
The author also revealed that Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis is attached to direct an adaptation of his latest book.
“Robert Zemeckis is doing the movie version of Mars Needs Moms! They’re working on the script now,” Breathed revealed.
Jim Hill speculates that this could be one of the very first projects to be produced by Disney’s new ImageMovers Digital unit.
Here is the book description for Mars Needs Moms!:
Milo doesn’t get it: What’s the big deal about moms? They’re just slavedriving broccoli bullies. Yet they are worshipped the world over! Perhaps even the galaxy over—because here come Martians and they’re after one thing only: moms. Milo’s mom in particular. Who better to drive them to soccer practice and to pizza parties? That’s quite a long way to come for a mom—could it be that Milo has been overlooking something special?
From Pulitzer Prize–winning comic strip creator of Bloom County and bestselling author Berkeley Breathed comes a funny, poignant book about how the unique love that binds our families can be overlooked in the rush and tumble of everyday lives . . . especially those of disgruntled little boys.
Catherine Bell Biography
A beguiling dark-eyed beauty with a statuesque figure, Catherine Bell rose to prominance on the military-themed television series “JAG” (1995 -2005) as Maj. Sarah “Mac” MacKenzie. Born in London, Bell emigrated to California with her Iranian mother at the age of two and began acting and modeling as a child. After a stint as a fashion model in Japan, Bell first got a foothold in Hollywood as a body double, performing a nude scene for Isabella Rossellini in director Robert Zemeckis’ “Death Becomes Her” (1992). Small roles in TV movies, C-level action flicks, sydicated fare including “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” and racy TV series such as HBO’s risque comedy “Dream On” and the erotic cable anthology “Hot Line”–which made great advantage of her enviable physique–followed.
She made her “JAG” debut on an 1996 episode as Lt. Diane Schonke, the love interest of lead character Harm (David James Elliott). After return engagements her character was tragically killed off, but Bell learned that “JAG” producer Don Bellasario was looking for a new regular female lead for the series and wrote Bellasario a letter, suggesting that it would be intirguing if the new character were the spitting image of Harm’s lost love. Bellasario agreed and Bell joined the cast as a new character, Maj. Sarah “Mac” MacKenzie when the show switched networks from NBC to CBS in 1997. She parlayed her visibility and the show’s mainstream popularity–especially with military supporters–into several magazine covers and roles in telepics, ultimately landing a high-profile movie role as the object of Jim Carrey’s lust in the comedy “Bruce Almighty” (2003). When her co-star Elliott announced his attention to leave the show following its tenth season in 2004-2005, producers initially planned to reshape the series around Bell, but the network ultimately pulled the plug on the show.
- Born:
on 08/14/68 in London, England - Job Titles:
Actor, Model
Family
- Grandparents: spoke Farsi
Significant Others
- Husband: . Adam
Education
- University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, pre-med
Milestones
- 1971 Moved to Los Angeles with family (date approximate)
- 1992 Served as Isabella Rossellini’s body double in “Death Becomes Her”
- 1993 Had supporting role in the NBC movie “Mother of the Bride”
- 1995 Feature acting debut “Men of War”
- 1997 Joined cast of “JAG” playing Sarah ‘Mac’ MacKenzie when show moved to CBS
- 1998 Co-starred with Maureen O’Hara in the CBS TV-movie “Cab to Canada”
- 2003 Returned to the big screen in the comedy “Bruce Almighty”
- Spent several months in Japan as a model