Wrap your brain around this: Stephen King’s It , the 1986 horror novel that spawned a 1990 miniseries and established Pennywise the clown as one of our most enduring collective nightmares (I still can’t pass a rain gutter in the street without wondering ) is being adapted into a movie in two parts. By the guy who made Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre ! Wait, what ? THR reports on the two-film adaptation, which is moving forward with director Cary Fukunaga onboard. Fukunaga, whose last effort was the hauntingly beautiful period adaptation Jane Eyre , will co-write the horror tale with Chase Palmer ( Dune ). It follows the plight of a group of friends dubbed The Losers Club who discover the insidious creature called It, a nasty being who’s fond of appearing in the guise of the most terrifying clown known to mankind and hiding in the sewers. They encounter It in two periods — as children and later, as adults — which seems like the obvious way to split the new iteration into two films. The idea of this new adaptation probably sounds more bizarre and random than it will turn out to be, given that Fukunaga’s a gifted filmmaker and, understandably, one who has seemed to choose his projects with care, not wanting to be pegged as one kind of director or another. Well, consider the portfolio diversified! Now, to steel myself for another two brushes with Pennywise… [via THR ]
The off-Broadway musical adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie may have outlasted its 1988 stage predecessor by four times the stage run, but it died nonetheless last weekend — two weeks early! The NYT has the post-mortem: “Several theater producers contacted recently said that Carrie , no matter how well acted and sung, presented far more than the usual share of difficulties, the most insurmountable being that nearly every character is dead at the end….Several reviewers complained about certain songs and a one-note blandness in the high school scenes, but the sharpest criticism was that Carrie had been de-camped to the point of dullness.” Chloe Moretz , you’re our last hope! [ NYT via Movie City News ]
Back in January, MGM/Screen Gems tapped director Kimberly Peirce to helm their remake of Stephen King’s Carrie , updating the supernatural tale after Brian de Palma’s iconic 1976 film adaptation. The current frontrunners to play Carrie White, the sexually repressed telekinetic teen who wreaks bloody revenge on her classmates at the high school prom? Kick-Ass star Chloe Moretz and actress Haley Bennett ( The Haunting of Molly Hartley , Marley & Me ), according to Vulture . Can either fill Sissy Spacek ‘s shoes? Fifteen-year-old Moretz and 24-year-old Bennett reportedly have the edge over other candidates who’ve read for the part, including Lily Collins , Dakota Fanning , and Emily Browning , which might indicate what sort of Carrie they’re going for here — with the exception of Moretz, these are actresses in their early twenties who can play teenage and have already dabbled in more mature material. (Spacek was 26 when De Palma’s Carrie was filmed.) At the same time, Moretz is arguably the hotter name of the bunch. But is the world ready to watch Hit Girl get her period in the showers and go on a menstrual rampage at prom? I mean, I’m sure Moretz could handle the material. I’m just not sure I can believe her playing vulnerable while doused in blood; the strength of her many badass roles to date has been in how assuredly she handles extreme situations despite her young age, not the other way around. Bennett, on the other hand, isn’t as well known to audiences and could probably disappear into the role more easily. Then again, Spacek was great as Carrie because she had that twitchy virginal weirdo thing down, and I’m not sure many up and coming starlets these days possess the ability to flip their freak-out switch on quite like she did. (According to Vulture, Jodie Foster and Julianne Moore are being batted around to play Carrie’s religious fanatic mom.) Are there any other potential Carries out there, or are these the best candidates of the bunch? How about Lindsay Lohan ? Sound off below.
Accepting an award last weekend at George Mason University, novelist Stephen King treated the audience to a reading of a passage from Dr. Sleep , his still-in-progress follow-up to The Shining . Remember little Danny Torrance, running from his deranged father (Jack Nicholson) in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film version? Well, Danny’s all grown up now, using his gift to help people die peacefully. And there are vampires, because why not?
Director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves are ‘the right team’ to bring Stephen King’s novel to the screen, expert tells MTV News. By Terri Schwartz, with reporting by Josh Wigler “Harry Potter” Director David Yates Photo: Stephen Lovekin/ Getty Images Hot off the success of the “Harry Potter” franchise, director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves are teaming up again to adapt another major literary property: Stephen King’s “The Stand,” for Warner Bros. For the uninitiated, “The Stand” is a post-apocalyptic novel that follows a group of survivors after 99.4 percent of the human race is wiped out by the effects of a biological weapon. The remaining survivors break off into two camps, one based in Boulder, Colorado, which represents good, and the other in Las Vegas, which represents evil. The two camps eventually face off in a stand that determines the future of mankind. When it comes to bringing a beloved novel to the big screen, Yates and Kloves certainly seem like the go-to pair, but “The Stand” is a different beast than “Harry Potter” in many ways. For one, the adult-oriented material is much darker than “Potter.” Drew McWeeny of HitFix , who broke the news, told MTV News he thinks the way Yates and Kloves treated the darker aspects of the “Potter” movies is a mark in their favor as they gear up for the “Stand” collaboration. “I think they’ve demonstrated as a team that they are capable of making extreme darkness palatable and ably depicting the struggle between good and evil,” McWeeny said. “It might not have been the first team I thought of to adapt that book, but it’s a damn good team.” MTV Movies Blog editor and “The Stand” fan Josh Wigler doesn’t think the movie can be made with anything less than an R rating. Similarly, McWeeny said the film won’t be an easy project for Warner Bros. to move through the studio. When McWeeny first broke the story , he said it didn’t make sense to bring “The Stand” to the screen again if it didn’t expand upon the 1994 TV miniseries — and he offered that the new element should be the very disturbing material that made the novel a hit. The novel, which features a massive cast of characters, is divided into three “books,” and the assumption is that Yates and Kloves wouldn’t attempt to adapt the story into just one movie. The larger question is whether Warner Bros. would make two movies or a trilogy out of “The Stand.” McWeeny thinks it could go either way. “I’ve been hearing that three is the magic number, creatively, and they want a trilogy,” he said. “[But] two films may just make better economic sense for them. I do think there’s a way to pull it off in two films, but that’s when you really start cutting this to the bone and that may not be best for the story itself.” With Universal having passed on Ron Howard’s ambitious attempt to adapt another King classic, “The Dark Tower,” it seems fair to presume that Yates and Kloves may worry about making “The Stand” too big. But there are many elements of “The Stand” that make it more adaptable than “Dark Tower” ever was, McWeeny said. “Even though [‘The Stand’ is] very big and has a ton of characters, there is a much more linear storytelling shape, and a simple film trilogy is something that Hollywood understands,” he explained. “Coming off the final ‘Potter’ film, I think Yates and Kloves are the right team to get almost anything made.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Photos ‘Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2’
Somehow, Lady Gaga’s uber-hyped single “Born This Way” made an impact here at Movieline. I encouraged the medium convergence, as the self-love-touting single could work as an anthem for many cinematic characters. Now, YouTube parodists have taken up that lead, mashing up Gaga’s song with X-Men: First Class ‘s mutant beginnings. You’ll remember that the movie and the original song are pretty much about the same thing , anyway. The first line alone will slay you.
Apparently, it just wasn’t meant to be — for now. Per Deadline, Universal has decided not to go forward with the crazy-ambitious adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower that director Ron Howard , producer Brian Grazer and screenwriter/producer Akiva Goldsman had planned over three films and two companion television series. Howard is now free to shop the project to other studios, though whether one bites remains to be seen. This is the second major geek property that Universal has passed on this year, following Guillermo del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness . [ Deadline ]
Apparently, it just wasn’t meant to be — for now. Per Deadline, Universal has decided not to go forward with the crazy-ambitious adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower that director Ron Howard , producer Brian Grazer and screenwriter/producer Akiva Goldsman had planned over three films and two companion television series. Howard is now free to shop the project to other studios, though whether one bites remains to be seen. This is the second major geek property that Universal has passed on this year, following Guillermo del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness . [ Deadline ]
Also in this Monday edition of The Broadsheet: Quentin Tarantino names his best films of 2010… Mila Kunis now officially home alone… the 24 movie hits a snag… and more ahead.
It might be a good time to stock up on canned goods, friends. Hours before the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve, residents of Beebe, Arkansas were shocked when more than 2,000 dead birds fell from the sky . “It was horrible,” said Beebe resident Melissa Weatherly , obviously. “You could not even get down the road without running over hundreds. It was that bad.” Though maybe not as bad as finding 100,000 dead fish washed ashore just 125 miles away.
