David Frankel Tagged Articles at Cinematical
David Frankel to Direct 'Septimus Heap'
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Deals », Warner Brothers », Family Films », DIY/Filmmaking », Newsstand », Harry Potter »
With only two Harry Potter films left, Warner Bros is desperately looking for a new fantasy series to replace its boy wizard. (Meanwhile, every studio from Sony to Disney are still looking for their version!) Two years ago, they snapped up the rights to Angie Sage's Septimus Heap series, and now Variety reports they're putting it into motion. They've attached David Frankel to direct, and Rob Lieber to adapt the first volume, Magyk. Sage's seven-volume series shares a lot of similarities with young Potter. Septimus Heap is the seventh son of a seventh son, who possesses magical powers, and is apprenticed to ExtraOrdinary wizard, Marcia Overstrand. Naturally he must overcome many trials and tribulations in his magical training, and his life is a sharp contrast to that of his adoptive sister, Jenna, who gets to live in the comfort and security of the Heap household after a Skywalker sort of switcharoo. While she lacks magic powers, Jenna makes up for it by being a princess, and heir to the throne of Castle. The overarching villain of the story is necromancer DomDaniel, who is power hungry and up to no good, as all necromancers are.
Unlike the Potter movies, Magick will be animated. Not only is that bound to be disappointing to fans, it's a pretty big departure for Frankel, who is best known for live-action flicks like Marley and Me and The Devil Wears Prada. As animated flicks don't usually turn into ongoing franchises, the plans suggest that even the studio knows this isn't going to hold a candle to Potter.
Review: Marley & Me
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Theatrical Reviews », 20th Century Fox », Family Films »
I can't vouch for John Grogan's 2005 best-selling memoir, Marley & Me, in which owning a yellow lab helped the journalist (Owen Wilson) and his wife (Jennifer Aniston) tolerate any number of trials and tribulations that came their way -- many of which could be chalked up to the carnage-prone canine himself. I suspect that, unlike their on-screen counterparts, the Grogans actually showed some indications of aging after thirteen years and three kids. I doubt that John had a perpetual bachelor of a best bud (Eric Dane) who lingered around to both knock and envy his marriage with convenient doses of sarcasm and handsomeness. I question that the couple could own a picturesque Pennsylvania estate on just one reporter's salary. But I'm fairly sure that both the book and the film shared a common goal -- to make its audience sit, stay, laugh, cry, and then get on with their lives -- and at those modest aspirations, the movie version pretty much succeeds.
Brad Pitt Takes On 'Moneyball', Too
Filed under: Sports », Casting »
Brad Pitt's got a busy schedule. Not only has he attached himself to George Miller's outer-space adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey, but he's also planning to star in an adaptation of Michael Lewis's non-fiction Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Moneyball is an insider account of the way Billy Beane put together the 2002 Oakland Athletics, using the power of scouting and sabremetrics to overcome a financial disadvantage. (The A's went 103-59 that year, winning the division but losing in the first round of the playoffs to the Minnesota Twins.) It's kind of a nerdy book, as you can imagine -- the A's defy the odds... through the magic of computerized statistical analysis! -- but it does have the classic underdog framework that has done wonders for a lot of sports movies. Pitt would be great for the role of Beane, who was 40 years old when the events of the book took place.David Frankel will direct the film as his follow-up to The Devil Wears Prada and this holiday season's Marley & Me. Steven Zaillian, whose last job was American Gangster, will write the screenplay. It's a good story, if not a terribly cinematic one; I'm curious to see what they do with it.
A Strange, Lovely Teaser for 'Marley & Me'
Filed under: Comedy », 20th Century Fox », Trailers and Clips »
I'm all for teaser trailers that reveal very little, especially as an alternative to the Robert Zemeckis school of trailers meant, apparently, to replace the finished film. And while I'm deeply skeptical of Marley & Me, an adaptation of local Philly journalist John Grogan's sappy man-and-his-dog memoir, I love the teaser that Fox unveiled today on the official website for the Christmas release. The reason I like it so much, I think, is that it played a trick on me. I heard the Chariots on Fire theme, saw the slow motion images, concluded that the labrador puppy and Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston's happy couple were triumphantly running toward one another, and kind of rolled my eyes. But then I thought, wait, that doesn't make sense -- they're clearly running in the same direction along the beach in the separate shots. Then it dawned on me; I watched the thing again, saw Aniston's concerned expression and the empty leash in Wilson's hand, and laughed out loud. Clever stuff.
The movie is directed by David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) and -- on the bright side -- written by Scott Frank (The Lookout, Minority Report). It's the first work Owen Wilson's done since recovering from last summer's horrifying suicide attempt.
Prada Team, Together Again for TWC
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Deals », Scripts », The Weinstein Co. », Newsstand »
Hoping to recapture the magic that (apparently) is The Devil Wears Prada, The Weinstein Company has hired that film's writer and director -- Aline Brosh and David Frankel, respectively -- to bring Allison Pearson's debut novel I Don't Know How She Does It to the big screen. The novel, according to at least one review at Amazon, is "a rare and beautiful hybrid: A devastatingly funny novel that's also a compelling fictional world." So, really, what's not to love? It tells the story of Allison Pearson, a British businesswoman and mother who struggles to balance her professional life with parenthood -- but in a totally hilarious way. In its review, Publisher's Weekly noted the book's similarities to Bridget Jones's Diary (sigh), but went on to describe Pearson as "notably brighter, wittier and capable of infinitely deeper shadings of feeling than the flighty Bridget," which makes it sounds like the movie could be about more than losing weight and finding a man. Hooray for that.The film will be produced by Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella; there's no word yet on when TWC hopes to have it in production.
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