Hany Abu-Assad Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Abu-Assad Gets 'Eleven Minutes' for a Rewrite
Filed under: Drama », Deals », Scripts »
Not ten minutes, not twelve ... but eleven. That's how long sex lasts, apparently. Just over a year ago, I posted that the Paulo Coelho novel Eleven Minutes was finally getting its shot at the big screen after a few years in development. Marcos Bernstein had been hired to adapt the novel. Now Variety reports that Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now) will direct the film, and is also going to rewrite the script.What I find particularly interesting about all of this is the description Variety uses for the Eleven Minutes; the write-up makes no mention of one of the key aspects of the film. I wonder if that was just the writer's choice, or if the film is getting away from the previous description? As I mentioned last year, the book starts off with: "Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria." The description attached to this news piece, however, says that the film will revolve "around Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village who is swept off to Geneva in an affair with a Swiss businessman. The book's title refers to the average duration of a sexual encounter, and much of Maria's discoveries occur between the sheets."
I'm going to assume it was an oversight, but it would be a nice change of pace to have a movie decide against the prostitute focus for once. Currently, there's no word on when this adaptation will head into production. Maybe next year, since the progress has been slow and easy so far.
Nicolas Cage Will Search for 'The Vanished'
Filed under: Drama », Thrillers », Casting », Focus Features »
Nicolas Cage as a parent? Variety says that Cage has signed up to play "a father who goes in search of his college-aged American-born Muslim son, who's missing overseas" in The Vanished. Cage is 43, so he's certainly old enough chronologically to play the parent of of a college kid. But maybe I'm just fixating on the buck-toothed role he played in his uncle's Peggy Sue Got Married, wherein Kathleen Turner desperately wanted to avoid having him father her child. Or maybe it's Raising Arizona, where he stole another family's quintuplets. Or Leaving Las Vegas, in which he drank himself to death, or Face/Off, where he made John Travolta's daughter think her dad was coming on to her, or the kind of fathers he played in Matchstick Men , The Family Man and The Weather Man.In real life, Cage is probably a wonderful father to his children, but his performances tend to be all over the map, so we'll wait to see how his collaboration with director Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now) turns out. Does Cage's character in The Vanished disapprove of his son's decision to become a Muslim? I would count on it. Does he love him anyway? Of course. Will he come into conflict with racial and religious prejudice? No doubt.
The Vanished is described as a thriller, but it's being made for Focus Features. That, along with the subject matter, clearly signals the film as possible Oscar bait. (For comparison's sake, Focus's releases this fall are Eastern Promises and Lust, Caution, Reservation Road and Atonement.) Cage will next be seen in the sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which hits theaters on December 21. He starts filming Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler in January and moves on to The Vanished in April. I wouldn't be surprised if they're aiming to complete it in time for the Toronto and/or Venice film festivals next September.
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