John Marks Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Her last horror outing, of 10 biblical plagues and The Reaping, wasn't the most loved piece of scary cinema to hit the screens, but the 2-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank is trying again. I'm not sure what has brought about her recent attraction to fantastical horror, but Variety reports that Swank will star in an upcoming adaptation of John Marks' recent novel, Fangland -- a project that she will produce with Das Films and Blumhouse Productions. Mark Wheaton, scribe of The Messengers, handed in the project's first draft just before the strike -- and he's the same guy whose Unfinished Country script just got Samuel L. Jackson to take the lead.

John Marks is a former producer of 60 Minutes, and Fangland merges Bram Stoker's legend of Dracula with his experience on the news show. Yes, that means Hilary is heading back to the vamps, but with a little more drama than her role on Buffy. Evangeline Harker (Swank) is a producer for a television news show who takes an assignment to go into Romania and investigate a criminal legend, Ion Torgu, to get him on camera. This will put Swank face to face with more stories about crazy plagues, first, because one can't get enough of terrible disease. Soon, Torgu accosts her, impersonating Dracula. Like Stoker's tale, Harker finds herself held for months, before she pops up in a Transylvanian monastery as this Torgu Dracula gets introduced to New York City. Since only the first draft has been completed, this production will, most likely, be in the works for a while yet. I wonder... will Swank get accosted by the same, lustful vixen vamps? If you've read it, or would just like to comment on Swank taking on Dracula, please chime in!

Double Oscar-winner Hilary Swank has reportedly signed to play Evangeline Harker in the big-screen version of John Marks' vampire novel Fangland. The New York Post is reporting that Swank's company optioned the book for Swank to star, which she will, and describes it as a "Dracula meets 'Network' story. That squares with what I've heard about the book -- that it's basically Bram Stoker's Dracula only all the protagonists are news people instead of lords and ladies. Evangeline Harker is a producer for a TV news show called The Hour that's based on 60 Minutes (where Marks used to work) who is debating a marriage proposal and trying to climb the ladder at work when she unexpectedly gets sent to Romania to do a puff piece on a legendary criminal named Ion Torgu. She ends up encountering Togu, who is supposedly very much a Dracula figure. No other details were available in the Post item about the forthcoming production of the film.

Swank has one film already in the can -- the romantic dramedy P.S., I Love You, about a woman who finds messages that her recently deceased husband left her, designed to help her get on with her life. She's also supposedly attached to Labyrinth, a thriller about a woman with multiple personalities, and one of those personalities knows the identity of a killer, but I'll believe this one when I see it actually get off the ground. We also recently reported that Swank is developing a remake of Intimate Strangers, a French film about a woman who thinks she's seeing a psychiatrist, but the guy is actually some nut pretending to be a psychiatrist. Looks like she's got a lot to bite off.