In the entry on The Assassin that went up during Cannes, I noted that Hou Hsiao-hsien had told Amy Qin, interviewing him for the New York Times, “There are so many movies I want to make. Even just in terms of Taiwan’s history the possibilities are endless.” And Qin adds that he told her “he was already in talks to make a film about the Taiwanese Communist Party under Japanese and later Kuomintang rule.” The project that Hou mentioned last week in Brussels may not necessarily be a different one, but it certainly sounds like it.
Via Ignatiy Vishnevetsky at the AV Club, the Taipei Times reports: “Hou said that Taipei used to have many waterways for paddy irrigation, but many of the waterways have since been covered over by roads as a result of urbanization. If there were a river goddess, she would feel very sad about the situation.” Hou and his writing partner, Chu Tien-wen, are working on a story about a study that comes across such a water goddess to be played by Shu Qi, star of The Assassin and Hou’s Millennium Mambo (2001) and Three Times (2005). Ignatiy: “Though the fantastic premise singles out the as-yet-untitled film as something of a departure—or the latest in a series of departures—it will mark the first time Hou has set an entire feature in modern-day Taiwan since 2001.”
According to Jordan Raup at the Film Stage, Richard Linklater has been test screening the film formerly known as That’s What I’m Talking About. Now the “spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused,” as it’s put in the official synopsis, is “currently going by Everybody Wants Some, named after the Van Halen song,” notes Raup. Set in 1980 on the last weekend before the first day of college, this’ll be—again, the synopsis—”a comedy that follows a group of friends as they navigate their way through the freedoms and responsibilities of unsupervised adulthood.” And the soundtrack may feature Talking Heads, Blondie, Pat Benatar and Devo.
Chuck Palahniuk tells the Wall Street Journal‘s Anna Russell that he and David Fincher are still aiming to produce a rock opera based on Fight Club—and that Trent Reznor is working on a score. Fincher is evidently in the process of acquiring the stage rights and has talks with Julie Taymor about her experience directing “big-spectacle Broadway productions.”
Trailer for a work in progress, Mutiny of Colours
Deadline‘s Mike Fleming Jr. reports that James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now, The End of the Tour) is looking to write and direct an adaptation of Stewart O’Nan’s West of Sunset, a novel that imagines F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last years in Hollywood. Fleming: “The intention is for this to come down the line and certainly doesn’t get in front of The Circle,” Ponsoldt’s adaptation of Dave Eggers’s novel “that has Tom Hanks set to star.”
At Thompson on Hollywood, Ryan Lattanzio reports that Jessica Chastain and Amy Schumer are lined up for Plus One, a “comedy about a woman, Rachel, who comes out of a long-term relationship only to realize all her friends have married off and there’s no one single left to go out with—except Summer, the loud, sexually over-sharing wild card who is now Rachel’s only option for a wing woman.”
Tilda Swinton “is in negotiations to join Benedict Cumberbatch in Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange, being directed by Scott Derrickson.” According to Borys Kit in the Hollywood Reporter, she’d play Strange’s mentor, “a Tibetan mystic known as the Ancient One.”
Also: Woody Harrelson and Laura Dern are in negotiations to star in Wilson, an adaptation of Daniel Clowes’s graphic novel to be directed by Craig Johnson (The Skeleton Twins). For the Guardian, Sam Thielman talks with Clowes, who’s written the screenplay: “It was a fun thing to do for 10 years or so, to write the screenplays. But now, really, all I want to do is sit at the drawing board. I’m newly inspired to get back to comics full-time and not do anything else. I’m cranking out the comics.”
And: Amma Asante (Belle) “has come aboard to direct A United Kingdom, a racial drama that has David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike in negotiations to star.”
“Joe Wright is in talks to direct The Lifeboat with Anne Hathaway attached to star in the adaptation of Charlotte Rogan’s book,” reports Deadline‘s Ali Jaafar.
THR‘s Gregg Kilday: “Taking his first plunge into animation, Jason Reitman will write and direct Beekle, an adaptation of the children’s book The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend for DreamWorks Animation.”
Just over a day left to support Northwest Passage, a documentary about growing up in Twin Peaks
Santa Inoue’s manga series Tokyo Tribe, the basis for Sion Sono‘s 2013 film, is about to become a television series. THR‘s Clifford Coonan has details.
“Peter Heller’s novel The Painter is packaging up with The Fighter scribe Paul Tamasy writing the script and Gabriela Cowperthwaite directing,” reports Deadline‘s Mike Fleming Jr. “She made a splash with the award-winning docu Blackfish.”
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