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Tucked away in this Hollywood Reporter article on Taiwan's aspirations as an international production hub is the surprising detail that Abderrahmane Sissako is preparing to shoot a film there, after deciding not to do it in China because of all the restrictions he would've faced.

Maybe I'm too old-school but I'd find the Jones biopic more promisingly written if it was by the Anna Karenina and War & Peace scribe. The original scribe, that is.

In all seriousness, I am excited to see Leo play the cult leader- especially given his best performance is still the manifestation of mad charisma in Wolf of Wall Street

A24 and HBO to develop cult TV series The Idol that also functions as a who's who of people in mini-major film now: the series, created (and perhaps co-written) by Sam Levinson and directed by Amy Seimetz, will star rapper The Weeknd, Lily-Rose Depp, and Red Rocket's Suzanna Son.

Never Cursed wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 10:13 pm A24 and HBO...Sam Levinson... Amy Seimetz... Suzanna Son

I'm overstimulated right now, the entertainment industry is making too many perfect choices so close together

Vincent Gallo is back... in a D.J. Caruso film produced by the Daily Wire

Tom Holland to play Fred Astaire in upcoming biopic

Wasn't Fred Astaire famously adamant against having his life portrayed on film, to the point of putting a clause in his will stipulating this wish?

Edit: A quick trip to Wikipedia confirms exactly this, but I wonder if the project will encounter any red tape around it..

There's a rider though for backsies if they can manage to wrangle the third actor to portray Spider-man

A provision like that isn't enforceable. California law does allow a celebrity's "right of publicity" to be passed down to their heirs for 70 years after their death, but that only applies to purely commercial ventures like merchandising or endorsements (e.g. the vacuum cleaner commercial that Astaire's widow signed off on in the '90s, over the objections of his daughter). Blocking someone from producing a film (or book or TV series, etc.) based on the publicly-known facts of a person's life would violate the First Amendment unless it were judged defamatory, which is irrelevant for deceased subjects since under U.S. law that only applies to living persons. Astaire's estate could tie it up with a lawsuit but it would ultimately go against them.

And as usual, it's one of two competing biopic projects, the other starring another former Billy Elliot, Jamie Bell (with Margaret Qualley as Ginger Rogers‽)

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 9:37 pm Denis Villeneuve to helm adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama

For the very reasons I dislike all of his films - style over substance, shallow attempts at thematic or character weight, etc. - I can't think of a better director for this book. The book is entirely, literally, about an empty shell (the arriving spacecraft) so if he continues on course, the result could almost be a truly avant-garde SF film, something akin to Robbe-Grillet or Antonioni's "surface" films. If he's smart, he'll avoid the unnecessary addition of plot contrivance or motivation, and refrain from casting any strong personalities, opting instead for simple observation of space and the movement of bodies. I don't know much about modern video games, but the book seems very much a forerunner of games I've read about where all you do is explore a world - no conflict, no other characters, etc.

I remember when Fincher was attached, and am now glad he never made the film; this director seems a smarter choice.

They actually did make a video game of it back in the day, tho' it was a Myst-style point-and-click, solve-difficult-logical-puzzles type thing. Not quite open world, but close-ish.

Christopher Landon's next feature will be We Have a Ghost, starring Jennifer Coolidge, David Harbour, Anthony Mackie, Tom Bower, and Tig Notaro, adapted from a Vice short story with the following synopsis per IMDb:

A man claims to have befriended a mostly harmless ghost who bears a likeness to the actor Ernest Borgnine and becomes famous on the Internet.

A rundown by David Hudson for the Criterion Daily of films to look forward to in 2022.

Buried in there is that the producer of Baumbach's White Noise has also bought the film rights to DeLillo's Underworld...

senseabove wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 8:10 pm Buried in there is that the producer of Baumbach's White Noise has also bought the film rights to DeLillo's Underworld...

Well, that's my favorite novel, period, but... I don't know if I want to see that. Maybe a miniseries, though the strengths are in the prose and internal existential thoughts vs. actions. White Noise is a much better book to adapt.

Yeah... my initial reaction was "oh no...." because, while I haven't read the whole novel since college, it was a formative one. I do read the Prologue/Pafko at the Wall every few years, for obvious reasons, and that section alone could/should be its own feature and yet feels utterly unadaptable.

senseabove wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 9:13 pmI do read the Prologue/Pafko at the Wall every few years, for obvious reasons, and that section alone could/should be its own feature and yet feels utterly unadaptable.

I was going to respond with a very similar comment. Its sprawling, frenetic nature would make for a solid one-hour featurette, but the best bits are (in my opinion) Hoover's internal thoughts, without which it would simply be a slapstick suspense piece if translated into cinematic form. I'm also in the minority where I think this is the weakest section of the novel (I have yet to speak to anyone who doesn't think it's the best, which has certainly quieted the esteem at least those in my vicinity have for the entire package when they feel it's so heavily front-loaded), though it's still obviously amazing- and a perfect way to start a book about the intangibility of holding onto meaning with a story about achieving tangible meaning in the moment!

Pardon the ignorance, but would it possibly to just adapt a chapter or small sequence like with Rivette’s Wurthering Heights or all Proust adaptations?

After, among other scandals, accusations detailing his alleged cannibalism fetish, Armie Hammer has been recast with Will Arnett in Taika Waititi’s next film, with his existing footage reshot Christopher Plummer style