What about leap years? (Film News - 10/09/11)

My mind is not on the news today. I'm pretty much too nervous for tomorrows race to think straight. Looking at what I've written so far pretty much confirms that. Sentence structure is all over the place, I wander aimlessly through paragraphs and don't have anything insightful to say about any of these unusual upcoming projects (although some would say, quite rightly, that's typical of my news posts). I suppose it doesn't help that none of this weeks stories really inspire me, the project either sounds daft, or extremely vague or I've mentioned it before. Take a look at whats coming up and tell me whether you think the same.


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Isn't everyone fed up of superheroes now? This summer proved that too many saturate the market with The Green Lantern in particular crashing and burning, and non-marquee superheroes or the stories of normal people who want amazing powers seems to fare even worse, just look at the box office figures for Scott Pilgrim or Kick Ass. Yet Hollywood still thinks there's cash in the old cow leading to Universal acquiring this dismal sounding action comedy spec from David Guggenheim.

The title refers to the majority of days in the year where our hero imagines, plans and contemplates the heroic deeds he will do on the one day of the year he has superpowers. Which to me sounds like it could be an awfully long boozy chat about what powers we'd choose to have - let's face it we've all been there proudly admitting invisibility would be cool even if it led to Hollow Man levels of perversity.



Plus I wonder what happens if your one day turns out to be a slow news day. You may want to stop a evil scientist from destroying New York or go beserk on an invading SWAT team, but aren't you more likely to be required to put out a chip pan fire or find a stolen car? Worthy no doubt but hardly worth having super powers for.

Guggenheim is currently riding high so it's no surprise to see all his ideas jumped on. Last year he quit as editor of US Weekly when his Safe House script was picked up (look out for Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds in that next year) and has just seen success with it's follow ups Santiago (sold to Fox) and Puzzle Palace (Summit Entertainment) so there must be something good about what he writes - or something immensely easy to sell.

Read on for twisted oaters, an intriguing clue, two strong female leads and the latest in casting titbits.



Untitled Gothic Western

I think John Carpenter must be a little confused. He seems to believe it's still the early 80's. At the Fright night festival 2011 he talked about the possibility of making a gothic Western, something he's currently working on. Admittedly in the clip online he does confess that making Westerns is tough at this time and commercially difficult to justify to the studios, however the ambition to make a genre straddling Western still seems a little brave. I also read in follow comments that he is hoping to get Amy Adams on board, which considering she's about to star in Man of Steel seems unlikely. Although it is reminiscent of casting Karen Allen in Starman only a couple of years after Raiders of the Lost Ark so he has form, but like I said before that was at his peak. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, only time will tell.

David Lynch

For far too long we appeared to have lost the surrealist master (right) to animated shorts, dance music and subversive clubs but after the five year feature hiatus since INLAND EMPIRE the man who puts Lynch in Lynchian could soon be back to cinemas near you. That's essentially a lot of preamble to nothing because all I have as a story is David saying in a recent interview with Rolling Stone " I’m working on another new film, but it’s not there yet." No details; no plot, title or cast, no real sign that's he's serious. But I really do hope he is. I need more backward speaking dwarfs in my cinemagoing experiences.

Juliet/The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

I've had the strangest feeling of deja vu this week (I knew you'd say that) as two projects we first reported on here years ago have resurfaced. First up it's the adaptation of Anne Fortier's 2010 novel which is sort of sequel to Shakespeare's doomed romance - a direct descendent of Juliet (um, how did that happen?) finds out that's Mercutio's "plague on both your houses" was a real and long-lasting curse - which we first heard about on 10 January 2009. Or going back even further to 28 July 2008 there's the young adult novel about Miss Doyle, the scion of British aristocracy, who finds herself a lone passenger on a trans-atlantic liner with a tale of intrigue to unfold. Back then Saoirse Ronan was attached as the title character but delays have meant she's too old and the task of casting has just begun. Oh, and if you don't believe me about the age of these stories, feel free to click on the labels below.

Casting News

We've heard the first couple of names bandied around with Lars von Trier explicit sex movie Nymphomaniac and frankly they couldn't be more disturbing. Among the sexual conquests of our heroine will be previous von Trier collaborators Stellan Skarsgaard and Willem Dafoe. Shouldn't he be concentrating on finding the girl before surrounding her by middle aged men? Les Miserables continues to build it's cast with the news that Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter are circling thes role of greedy innkeeper Thenardier and his wife, erm Madame Thenardier, not much of a surprise given their previous in musicals (in Bran Nue Dae and Sweeney Todd respectively) and the recent work with director Tom Hooper on The King's Speech.