Assorted Discussions of Films That Never Happened

[ianthemovie]

According to an interview with Eric Kohn while at Cannes, Todd Haynes' upcoming projects include a re-teaming with Kate Winslet for HBO, and a sexually explicit gay romance set in 1930s L.A., starring Joaquin Phoenix and co-written with Jon Raymond.

(Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere already.)

[Matt]

Sure, Todd (or actually Joaquin, who he’s quoting). And you have a distributor already signed on who supports you in this, right?

[yoloswegmaster]

According to an interview with Eric Kohn while at Cannes, Todd Haynes' upcoming projects include a re-teaming with Kate Winslet for HBO, and a sexually explicit gay romance set in 1930s L.A., starring Joaquin Phoenix and co-written with Jon Raymond.

(Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere already.)

Phoenix dropped just 5 days before production started

[domino harvey]

Bizarre, since he was apparently the driving force behind it even being made and helped to conceive the story. Wonder what is happening here

[yoloswegmaster]

Deadline is saying that he stormed off the set a couple weeks ago and the project is now dead

[beamish14]

Deadline is saying that he stormed off the set a couple weeks ago and the project is now dead

I guess walking before filming actually starts is preferable to what Bruce Willis did on Broadway Brawler, Russell Crowe on Flora Plum, and Sam Kinison with Atuk

[The Narrator Returns]

[beamish14]

I can only imagine how devastated and livid Vachon, Haynes, and other stakeholders are.

[beamish14]

The Wall and the Wing, a very early Laika feature that never made it past proof of concept tests and storyboarding

[Lemmy Caution]

Shingō village in Japan contains another location of what is purported to be the last resting place of Jesus, the so-called "Tomb of Jesus" (Kirisuto no haka), and the residence of Jesus's last descendants, the family of Sajiro Sawaguchi.

According to the Sawaguchi family's claims, Jesus Christ did not die on the cross at Golgotha. Instead his brother, Isukiri, took his place on the cross, while Jesus fled across Siberia to Mutsu Province, in northern Japan. Once in Japan, he changed his name to Torai Tora Daitenku, became a rice farmer, married a twenty-year old Japanese woman named Miyuko, and raised three daughters near what is now Shingō.

While in Japan, it is asserted that he traveled, learned, and eventually died at the age of 106. His body was exposed on a hilltop for four years. According to the customs of the time, Jesus's bones were collected, bundled, and buried in the mound purported to be the grave of Jesus Christ.

This seems about as likely as the lost tribe of Israel founding America. But I like when far-flung places get in on major cultural narratives they otherwise seem extremely disconnected from.

The first thing that came to mind was Andrei Rubylev but set in the Roman Era. Or something like Pasolini's Gospel of St Anthony for the Japan section. (okay, really the first thing which came to mind is the Monty Python scene, where a stranger offers to carry the cross for a condemned man who then giddily flees).

Anyway, there are many ways to approach such material. Including emphasizing the Japanese-ness of Christ, the spirituality of rice growing, acceptance of aging, divinity and doubt, salvation or no. I envision the film as quietly mediative, concerned with nature, and the interaction of Japanese culture on Christ, and vice versa.