Morning Deal Report: No Venom for Sam Raimi

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Have we learned nothing from the Catwoman movie? Sony is hoping to have better luck spinning off a super-villain from their flagship superhero franchise – in this case, Spider-Man’s “gooey nemesis” Venom. Per the Hollywood Reporter, the studio “is hoping the character could serve as an antidote to the aging Spider-Man franchise in the way that Fox has used Wolverine to add longevity to its X-Men franchise…The studio had commissioned a draft of the script from Jacob Estes, a writer of the specialty film Mean Creek, released several years ago by Paramount Classics.” Topher Grace played Venom in Spider-Man 3, but that’s no guarantee he’ll headline the spinoff.

It’s also a long shot that Spidey director Sam Raimi will be behind the camera, especially now that he’s got a new project set up at Disney. It’s called The Transplants, and – brace yourselves – it’s described as “a four-quadrant ensemble superhero story with a comedic bent,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. The inspiration comes from screenwriters Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, best known for Not Another Teen Movie. Getting excited yet?

If not, here’s some big news for all of you eagerly anticipating Howard Stern’s Porky’s. It’s…Howard Stern’s Rock and Roll High School. The shock jock is producing a remake of the 1979 comedy, to be scripted by Bill and Ted co-star Alex Winter. In case you’ve forgotten, Variety reminds us that the original “was about a group of rebellious students who, with the help of punk rock band the Ramones, thwarted a repressive, rock-music-hating principal.” I guess the only real surprise, given the current superhero mania, is that Stern has not yet resurrected that long-dormant Fartman movie. Surely it’s only a matter of time.

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Vanishing Act: Christopher McQuarrie

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:30:00 GMT

It’s rare that the screenwriter for a splashy indie film will get as much or more attention than the director, but that was the case when The Usual Suspects hit it big in 1995. Boyhood friends Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie first collaborated on 1993’s Public Access, which went nowhere despite winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Their second effort become a modern crime classic, and there was no ignoring the fact that McQuarrie’s twisty narrative and twisted characters contributed greatly to the success of Suspects. In fact, when the Academy Awards were held the following year, it was McQuarrie who walked away with the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

It was Singer, however, who used Suspects as a launching pad to a blockbuster career. After the Stephen King misfire Apt Pupil, Singer bounced back with the first two X-Men movies and the semi-successful Superman Returns. McQuarrie went his own way, hoping to realize his dream project: bringing Alexander the Great to the screen. This turned into a long, frustrating odyssey that ended when Oliver Stone made his own much-mocked version with Colin Farrell. McQuarrie’s sole effort as a writer-director, The Way of the Gun, was released in 2000, but it was something of a disappointment, getting lost in the post-Tarantino crime wave. Since then, McQuarrie has worked as a script doctor (doing uncredited rewrites on the first X-Men, among others) and has been involved in a number of aborted projects, including a Bryan Singer remake of Logan’s Run, but he has a grand total of zero screen credits since 2000.

That’s finally about to change. Today McQuarrie’s name popped up in this AP story about yet another controversy surrounding the upcoming Tom Cruise film Valkyrie. It seems Slate has had to retract a claim that the film’s producers altered photographs of German officer Claus von Stauffenberg in order to make them more closely resemble Cruise. This claim turned out to be false, and commenting on the situation was one of Valkyrie’s producers – Christopher McQuarrie. Per the AP: “‘The picture United Artists used of Colonel Stauffenberg can be found all over the Internet,’ said Valkyrie co-writer and producer Chris McQuarrie in a written statement released by a United Artists spokeswoman Tuesday. McQuarrie, who won a screenplay Oscar in 1995 for The Usual Suspects, added that it would have been easier to ‘alter Tom Cruise’ than to doctor ‘every available picture of Claus von Stauffenberg.’”

Valkyrie is the first full-fledged reunion of Singer and McQuarrie since The Usual Suspects. The duo was also set to re-team for the Harvey Milk biopic The Mayor of Castro Street, but that was before Gus Van Sant went forward with Milk. McQuarrie’s next announced project as a writer-director is The Stanford Prison Experiment, based on the actual psychological study gone awry in 1971. Rumored cast members include Ryan Phillippe and Paul Dano, but given the bumps in the road McQuarrie has already hit, it’s best to take such information with a grain of salt.

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The Screengrab : the x-men

Morning Deal Report: No Venom for Sam Raimi

Vanishing Act: Christopher McQuarrie