June 12, 2009

The author of The Hours has an interesting new project...

...which you can read about here, from Variety:
Screen Gems prevailed in a spec auction for "Beautiful Girl," a scary genre thriller from a most unlikely source: Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Hours."
Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing through their Red Wagon banner.
Story concerns a shy but brainy high school girl who returns for senior year after having slimmed down six dress sizes. She finds herself flirting with the handsome English lit teacher, but the mutual crush turns deadly when the teacher's obsession with the student compels him to exact maniacal revenge on everyone who was cruel to her.
Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper met Cunningham through Wick and was surprised to find a genre junkie, even if his love of blood-soaked movies didn't seep into his books, or scripts like "A Home at the End of the World."
Cunningham said he has always been a huge genre fan and, when sitting with Wick, would argue such basics as whether the second "Hostel" was as good as the first one.
"While I was writing about Virginia Wolff, my mind was never far removed from the idea of girls in bikinis being hacked up by guys wearing hockey masks, and I vowed that if I ever had a good idea, I would write one of these scary movies," Cunningham told Daily Variety.
"We've become such genre paisans, and when I showed the script to Doug, he showed it to Clint, and it was instant love," Cunningham said. "This summer, I will finish a novel where nobody gets anything gouged out of them, but my plan is to then write another idea I have for an actual monster movie. As it turns out, we sometimes find we can do more than one thing in our lives."
-Definitely something different...

5 comments:

  1. I'm a fan of Michael Cunninghams, and think he has done some truly remarkable work. I am all for someone trying something different - if Michael Crichton had stuck to medicine and not ventured, imagine all the movies and projects we would not have had to enjoy!

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  2. I nominate Anthony Hopkins, and Rachel Evan Wood to lead this film!

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  3. right on Matthew

    Nigel, who made you casting agent for this film? Who knows if it will even happen, and at this point, Hopkins wouldn't get this, he's too old, and Wood is too old as well....

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  4. seems pretty generic

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  5. I'm not too impressed with the idea, but it could work, and I agree with anonymous, those are highly unlikely to be the casting choices for this film, if it comes to pass

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