Watchmen Video Diary: Dave Gibbons
It wouldn’t be the 6th of the month if we didn’t get a new Watchmen video diary. Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons takes you on a walking tour through the production design of Zack Snyder’s film adaptation in the latest video which is available on UGO. I wasn’t really excited about this project until I first saw all the incredible detail of the New York City set. And in this video diary Gibbons focuses on all the little details that come off the page onto the screen. Watchmen hits theaters on March 6th 2008.
Pissing Off The Catholics… Again?
Apparently, the Catholic Church hasn’t forgotten the firestorm of controversy that The Da Vinci Code (book AND film) dredged up a few years ago.
According to new reports, the team behind the upcoming Angels & Demons film adaptation, including director Ron Howard and actor Tom Hanks, have been banned from filming in two churches because the movie “does not conform to our views,” said Monsignor Marco Fibbi, a spokesman for the diocese.
The crew had asked to film in the churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria, two architectural jewels in the heart of Rome that include paintings by Caravaggio, sculptures by Bernini and a chapel designed by Raphael.
Permission was denied in 2007, but the issue [re]surfaced only now that filming is ongoing in Rome, Fibbi said. The Sony-produced film was put on hold during the Writers Guild of America strike that ended in February and is now scheduled for release in May 2009.
“It’s a film that treats religious issues in a way that contrasts with common religious sentiment,” Fibbi told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “We would be helping them create a work that might well be beautiful but that does not conform to our views.”
Fibbi acknowledged that the controversy over writer Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” and its blockbuster movie version had weighed on the decision.
The ban won’t extend to the exterior of the buildings, but film crews will not be allowed inside.
Something the church DOES seem to have forgotten is that, by boycotting and otherwise trying to block the release of the movie (and book, for that matter), it only added fuel to the controversy and probably made the franchise THAT MUCH MORE SUCCESSFUL. People who wouldn’t ordinarily have read the book or seen the movie were intrigued by something the church was so vehemently trying to squash.
Lesson to be learned: If you don’t want to make a big deal out of something, IGNORE IT. Besides, they obviously haven’t read A&D, because it has nothing to do with biblical conspiracies. The movie’s going to be successful anyway. Ah well.
Darko to Serve Beer in Hell
Richard Kelly’s Darko Entertainment will produce and finance a big screen adaptation of Tucker Max’s bestseller I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. The book is composed of short stories narrated by the author in gonzo style. The New York Times coined a genre called “fratire” in reference to the book, a response to “chicklit”, filled with hyper-masculinity and political incorrectness. Hell has remained on the New York Times bestseller list since its debut in 2006. Simon and Schuster are even scheduled to release a sequel to the book later this year.
So what is it about? Well, the feature film adaptation will be loosely based on The Austin Road Trip story. Tucker and his friends embark on an impromptu trip to celebrate his friend’s bachelor party. But when Tucker abandons his buds in pursuit of sex, he ends up being banned from the wedding, and decides to attempt to right his past wrongs.
Tucker explains why they chose Darko over 50 other movie financiers on his blog:
We went with Darko over everyone else for many reasons, the main one being exactly what I wrote about here: They not only “got” the creative vision behind the movie, but they were basically the only company that, when I talked to them, I didn’t feel I was dealing with financiers, I felt I was talking to actual artists. They didn’t ask what “bankable” stars I was talking to, they agreed that the movie would be better without a huge name. They didn’t “suggest” ways to make it a four quadrant movie, they told me about how they had never quoted lines from a script to each other. They didn’t whine about how hard it would be to find a distributor, they talked about all the ways they could help me make the movie even better. I felt like I was talking to guys who really cared about making the best movie possible, and who knew how to do exactly that.
Bob Gosse (Niagara, Niagara) is attached to direct based on a screenplay by Max and Nils Parker. The film is currently casting and is scheduled to begin principal photography in Shreveport, LA, in the beginning of July. They have a $7 Million budget and are aiming for a Spring 2009 release. Read a sample chapter over on Barnes and Noble.
source: Variety
Pollack’s Projects Up in the Air
Sydney Pollack left behind one of the great film legacies when he died Monday. He also left behind a pile of unfinished business.
The fate of the Hollywood titan’s myriad projects remains uncertain, with his death following so closely that of his producing partner and fellow Oscar winner Anthony Minghella, who died of a hemorrhage following routine surgery in March.
The duo, considered two of Hollywood’s most esteemed auteurs, had several high-profile productions in the pipeline at their Mirage Enterprises, including an English-language remake of 2007’s Best Foreign Oscar winner, The Lives of Others, for the Weinstein Company and the upcoming HBO series The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.
Mirage executives are now scrambling to figure out what to do with the slate.
Sources tell the Hollywood Reporter several of the pair’s projects that do not have other producers attached might end up under the purview of Pollack’s agents at Creative Artists Agency and his family. Alternatively, daughter Rebecca, formerly an executive at United Artists, could step in and oversee them.
“We’re all flying a little blind right now,” an insider close to Pollack tells the trade.
In the meantime, Mirage says it plans on moving ahead with the lineup, which includes the following:
- I Don’t Know How She Does It, a feature film adaptation of Allison Pearson’s novel, helmed by David Frankel (Marley & Me)
- The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, a feature adapted by Minghella from a novel by Liz Jensen
- The Silver Linings Playbook, an inspirational drama based on a forthcoming novel
- Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand, based on the children’s fantasy series by Jonathan Stroud
- The Ressurectionists, a film for Miramax based on the novel by Michael Collins, which Minghella planned to direct
- Colombian Gold, a murder mystery to be directed by Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl)
- Liberty, a thriller set in Haiti
- Turbulence, a thriller Mirage was producing for Universal