HOME

Variety reports:

Mpower Pictures (“The Stoning of Soraya M.”) and Beloved Pictures are teaming to co-produce C.S. Lewis’ fantasy novel “The Great Divorce.”

Veteran producer and Mpower CEO Steve McEveety will lead the production team. Childrens’ book author N.D. Wilson (“Leepike Ridge,” “100 Cupboards”) is attached to write.

Lewis, who wrote the “Chronicles of Narnia” books and often wove Christian themes into his works, published “The Great Divorce” in 1945. Story centers on a man who learns that the sprawling, dim metropolis where he’s been living is actually Hell; he hops on a bus headed for the outskirts of Elsewhere, only to discover that the one place worse than Hell, for a self-absorbed ad executive, just might be Heaven.

Mpower was created by McEveety in 2007 after he’d been a longtime exec at Mel Gibson’s Icon Prods. He produced “The Passion of the Christ” and “We Were Soldiers” and exec produced “Braveheart” and “What Women Want.” . . .

I asked Scott Nolte, the producing artistic director of Seattle’s Taproot Theatre, what he thought of this. Why Scott? He just wrapped up a successful stage production of the show in Seattle. (more…)

Poor Mrs. Frisby. Looks like Bedrock Studios is the latest studio to disrespect her name. (more…)

Judi Dench will be playing a supporting role in the costume drama Jane Eyre, the latest adaptation of the classic novel by Charlotte Brontë. So, of course, that means this is a project to be taken seriously.

I’d love to see someone do a clever mash-up of Dench’s scenes from all of the period pieces where she has curtly snapped off lines about how the social norms are being upset.

Who are the leads?
(more…)

Casablanca? Henry IV? Ordet? (more…)

Let’s just be clear. These Narnia movies aren’t supposed to be based on the books. They’re supposed to be based on the filmmakers’ *memories* of the books, which they might not have read since childhood. Because, you know, those memories will be so much better than the books. And who could expect a busy filmmaker to actually read the novel he’s adapting?
(more…)

First it was Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Then it was M. Night Shyamalan.

Now, Variety reports, Ang Lee is considering Yann Martel’s Life of Pi.

Have you read it? Which director would you pick? It’ll take someone with a poetic sensibility and a flair for fantasy. I’d certainly get in line for a Lee version.