Hollywood's decline
If you know me you know that all my life I've maintained a list of six pet projects that I've wanted to direct big-budget movies of:
Castlevania
Metroid
The Legend of Zelda
The Narnia Chronicles
Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles
Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera
Admittedly I'm not quite old enough to be in a position where these films would even be a possibility for me to approach. At least that's how I'd be looked at by producers/studios unless I came out of the gate with some high-concept no-budget feature that looked like a million bucks. Well, that's understandable, but I've been racing for the past decade to get to that point before these properties get sullied by some other creative team.
I was very disappointed to hear Joel Schumacher named as the Phantom director years ago, but I love the end result he gave us with that film. I would've given it some major accolades if I were a member of the Academy. We all know Neil Jordan did a bang-up job on Interview with the Vampire 11 years ago, but I knew there were many more tales in that series that I could eventually helm myself by the time they got to the other chapters. But Michael Rymer had to go and screw all that up with his flash-pan sequel!
Of the six on that list, The Narnia Chronicles mean the most to me, and so I was crushed when I read that not only was production beginning on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (my favourite of the seven), but that the director would be none other than Andrew Adamson, the director of Shrek 1 and 2 (movies I abhor). Well, I think anyone that's seen either of the two trailers can attest that he's done a wonderful job, which looks to be incredibly faithful to the books.
So that leaves me: a complete revamping of The Vampire Chronicles, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Castlevania. There's been talk for years that The Vampire Chronicles is set to be a mini-series; John Woo picked up the rights to Metroid recently (which tears me up, because he's an action-director, and my approach was going to be very esoteric and experimental); Zelda (which I continue to pray remains out of the minds of Hollywood producers); and Castlevania. In all honesty I have to say that The Vampire Chronicles is perhaps my top choice there, but a CLOSE second goes to Castlevania, specifically a movie based on the second video game, Simon's Quest.
Well, as of yesterday, not only was it announced that Castlevania is going into production, but that one of the worst working directors today, Paul Anderson, is handling it! I was crushed; However, perhaps I can still play ball. The Castlevania series is a mixture of two properties: classic literary/mythological monsters, and Robert E. Howard's (of Conan, Red Sonya, Kull the Conqueror fame) Solomon Kane character:
He's a 16th century Puritan who fights vampires and other magical entities, all over Europe, Africa, and South America. And guess what? The stories involving him are in the public domain, the same as the character of Dracula, Frankenstein's creature, et cetera.
Part of the brilliance of the Castlevania series is the music. But as a thesis has pointed out, much of it is based upon Baroque-era selections. And _the_antihero and I have been discussing doing a feature for years wherein a lone character wanders the countryside, fighting off an infestation of creatures or mutants, in an effort to showcase the variety of Oklahoma landscapes, as well as fulfill my desire to make an exploitation film.
The announcement of the already-tarnished approach to the beloved Castlevania franchise is my chance to step up and prove that Hollywood producers are out of it when it comes to properly addressing adaptations of video game properties. My Loads of Dames movie is still on the front burner, but its a question now of which is feasible to come first: It, or my free-reign Castlevania? Paul Anderson's will be Castlevania in name-only. Mine will be Castlevania in every aspect except for its title! I guess it all depends upon which of my projects gains the most amount of funding first. Let the race between flappers and vampire-hunters begin! It'd be awesome if I could release my Castlevania-homage just before or at the same time as Paul Anderson's!
In other news of how miserably Hollywood is flailing, today it has been announced that the next classic to be remade is none other than The Wild Bunch:
But the creative team wants it set in the modern day! What are they thinking?! You CAN'T remake The Wild Bunch; It's such a revolutionary film, of and about the time it was made in. Kids growing up today are only going to be able to reference classic titles in association with crappy remakes, and assume that any meaningful discussion of them was always just a bunch of hype.
Castlevania
Metroid
The Legend of Zelda
The Narnia Chronicles
Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles
Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera
Admittedly I'm not quite old enough to be in a position where these films would even be a possibility for me to approach. At least that's how I'd be looked at by producers/studios unless I came out of the gate with some high-concept no-budget feature that looked like a million bucks. Well, that's understandable, but I've been racing for the past decade to get to that point before these properties get sullied by some other creative team.
I was very disappointed to hear Joel Schumacher named as the Phantom director years ago, but I love the end result he gave us with that film. I would've given it some major accolades if I were a member of the Academy. We all know Neil Jordan did a bang-up job on Interview with the Vampire 11 years ago, but I knew there were many more tales in that series that I could eventually helm myself by the time they got to the other chapters. But Michael Rymer had to go and screw all that up with his flash-pan sequel!
Of the six on that list, The Narnia Chronicles mean the most to me, and so I was crushed when I read that not only was production beginning on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (my favourite of the seven), but that the director would be none other than Andrew Adamson, the director of Shrek 1 and 2 (movies I abhor). Well, I think anyone that's seen either of the two trailers can attest that he's done a wonderful job, which looks to be incredibly faithful to the books.
So that leaves me: a complete revamping of The Vampire Chronicles, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Castlevania. There's been talk for years that The Vampire Chronicles is set to be a mini-series; John Woo picked up the rights to Metroid recently (which tears me up, because he's an action-director, and my approach was going to be very esoteric and experimental); Zelda (which I continue to pray remains out of the minds of Hollywood producers); and Castlevania. In all honesty I have to say that The Vampire Chronicles is perhaps my top choice there, but a CLOSE second goes to Castlevania, specifically a movie based on the second video game, Simon's Quest.
Well, as of yesterday, not only was it announced that Castlevania is going into production, but that one of the worst working directors today, Paul Anderson, is handling it! I was crushed; However, perhaps I can still play ball. The Castlevania series is a mixture of two properties: classic literary/mythological monsters, and Robert E. Howard's (of Conan, Red Sonya, Kull the Conqueror fame) Solomon Kane character:
He's a 16th century Puritan who fights vampires and other magical entities, all over Europe, Africa, and South America. And guess what? The stories involving him are in the public domain, the same as the character of Dracula, Frankenstein's creature, et cetera.
Part of the brilliance of the Castlevania series is the music. But as a thesis has pointed out, much of it is based upon Baroque-era selections. And _the_antihero and I have been discussing doing a feature for years wherein a lone character wanders the countryside, fighting off an infestation of creatures or mutants, in an effort to showcase the variety of Oklahoma landscapes, as well as fulfill my desire to make an exploitation film.
The announcement of the already-tarnished approach to the beloved Castlevania franchise is my chance to step up and prove that Hollywood producers are out of it when it comes to properly addressing adaptations of video game properties. My Loads of Dames movie is still on the front burner, but its a question now of which is feasible to come first: It, or my free-reign Castlevania? Paul Anderson's will be Castlevania in name-only. Mine will be Castlevania in every aspect except for its title! I guess it all depends upon which of my projects gains the most amount of funding first. Let the race between flappers and vampire-hunters begin! It'd be awesome if I could release my Castlevania-homage just before or at the same time as Paul Anderson's!
In other news of how miserably Hollywood is flailing, today it has been announced that the next classic to be remade is none other than The Wild Bunch:
But the creative team wants it set in the modern day! What are they thinking?! You CAN'T remake The Wild Bunch; It's such a revolutionary film, of and about the time it was made in. Kids growing up today are only going to be able to reference classic titles in association with crappy remakes, and assume that any meaningful discussion of them was always just a bunch of hype.