Larry Karaszewski Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Columbia is Getting 'Goosebumps'
Filed under: Horror », Thrillers », Deals », Mystery & Suspense », Scripts », Newsstand »
If you were a young whippersnapper in 1992, chances are the Goosebumps books were a lurid staple on your bedside table. My sister was an enormous fan, whereas I preferred, shockingly, Star Wars novelizations and sword-and-sorcery. I was just a little too old for their goofy twist endings -- although the single one I read gave me nightmares, I think because a dog was killed or something. (Let's ascribe it to a fragment of underdone potato, shall we?) In retrospect, you really are what you read as a kid -- my sister went on to a lifelong love of Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe, whereas I memorized Beowulf. Well, now they will get to terrorize and influence even more children, because Goosebumps is coming to the big screen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Columbia bought the rights to R.L. Stine's endless series in May, and has now hired Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander to pen a script. Columbia is hoping to turn it into a franchise -- and since there are 62(!) books currently lining bookshelves round the world, they will have plenty of material to choose from. It's not clear which book they will adapt first, or if the film will be a hodgepodge of several. At this time, no director is attached, though producer Neal Moritz already has an eye for casting. He wants unknown children, and well-known adult actors in supporting roles.
Many of the books are homages to classic horror films, like Night of the Living Dead and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If the books inspired a love of horror literature in my sister, perhaps the films will create a whole new generation of Scott Weinbergs. I know there's probably a number of Goosebumps readers out there so share your fond memories, nightmares and I-hope-they-film-this-one thoughts below ....
Thomas Haden Church Has 'Big Eyes' for Kate Hudson
Filed under: Drama », Casting »
Oh, Lowell, when will you find true love? To me, Thomas Haden Church will always be Lowell, the lovable mechanic from the 90s sitcom Wings, but most movie fans are probably more familiar with his Academy Award-nominated role as Jack, the unfaithful, somewhat sleazy buddy of wine lover Paul Giamatti in Alexander Payne's Sideways. More recently, he became a giant, somewhat bewildered pile of sand in Spider-Man 3. (Sorry, I never quite understood his character in the movie.) Now he's about to star with the adorable, bubbly Kate Hudson -- but it's not the kind of light romantic pairing you might expect.According to Variety, Church will play Hudson's husband in Big Eyes, a biopic that will be directed by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, based on their script. The film will dramatize events in the lives of Walter and Margaret Keane. For many years, Walter reportedly took credit for artwork that his wife had painted. The artwork became quite popular; eventually, though, Margaret sued Walter in order to regain credit, and evidently the lawsuit and trial will be key components in the film.
Whether you find the artwork to be creepy, as Christopher Campbell did, or worthy of museums and one-artist shows (check out the list at Margaret Keane's official site), I think the film stands a good chance of being quite dramatic, especially with the addition of Church. He can be simultaneously charming and sleazy, as he proved in Sideways, so I expect fireworks and sparks to fly when the film is released.
Kate Hudson's Got 'Big Eyes'
Filed under: Drama », Casting », Cinematical Indie »
Oh, if only all biopics were as aptly titled as Big Eyes, a movie about the artist Margaret Keane. If you're not familiar with her work, simply do a Google image search and you'll see why the title makes sense. Of course, I would have gone a little further and named it Creepy Big Eyes. According to Variety, the production has cast Kate Hudson as Keane, who is still alive to possibly assist the actress with the role. The independently financed film was scripted by biopic masters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood; The People vs. Larry Flynt; Man on the Moon) Variety reports that Big Eyes will deal with Keane's personal life, specifically her lawsuit against her second husband, Walter Keane, who had taken credit for her mass-produced artwork until the 1960s. Not to give away spoilers, but according to Keane's Wikipedia page, she finally won the rights to her work in divorce proceedings that went all the way to Federal court. How did she prove she was the real talent? She painted in court in front of the judge (Walter meanwhile declined to do the same). I apologize for ruining the ending of the film, but I figured I'd share that info so that when the scene pops up in Big Eyes, you'll know it isn't just some cinematic tool used to make the story more visually interesting.
Regardless of how the movie is received now, though, it's sure to be one of the most popular movies come 2173 (see Woody Allen's Sleeper, which claims that in the future Keane is considered one of the greatest artists of all time)
Jeffrey M. Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows -- Writers on the Storm
Filed under: Scripts », Columns », 400 Screens, 400 Blows »
Every once in a while, a film critic comes out of the woodwork and tries to pose the idea that the auteur theory is bunk and that film authorship should be based on the work of the writer, and not the director. Currently, auteur critics consider the director the author of a picture (and it has to be a picture with personality, otherwise, the director isn't really an author, but rather a technician).
Recently the San Francisco International Film Festival started paying tribute to writers. Last year the recipient was Paul Haggis, about whom I think we've heard quite enough. He's worked on just about every movie that came out in the last couple of years: Million Dollar Baby, Crash, Casino Royale, The Last Kiss, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. I guess I don't need to point out that the only good movies on that list were directed by Clint Eastwood, and that the other good one, Casino Royale, depended on a good deal more than just its script. And if you take away the directors of those films, there's not much connecting them thematically or otherwise.
Eli Roth Talks About Adapting Stephen King's 'Cell'
Filed under: Horror », The Weinstein Co. »
Now that he's just finishing up with his gruesomely anticipated Hostel: Part 2, professional horror geek Eli Roth is starting to set his sights on that next project we're all so curious about: His adaptation of Stephen King's Cell, which is expected to begin production later this year. He's presently refining the screenplay with the writing team of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski -- plus he just got the blessing from King himself to deviate from the source material if he really wants to.Sci Fi Wire shares the words from Mr. Roth: "My first question when I adapted it was, 'Can I deviate from the book?'" ... It's Stephen King. Am I going to piss off Stephen King? He was mad at Stanley Kubrick [who adapted King's The Shining], I don't want him mad at me. And, finally, Stephen King was like, 'Do whatever you want.'" (Personal interjection: I think this is pretty great news, because, as much as I enjoyed Cell, I definitely think it runs out of steam and gets a little scattershot during Act III.) Eli seems to agree with me a little bit: "I love the opening [scene] ... But I also want to keep, ... not necessarily that same chaotic tone, but I want to keep the tension of the opening 40 pages of the book going throughout the whole film and introduce other elements." So wait. He's going to take an established story and actually add his own ideas into the mix? It won't be a slavish and paint-by-numbers adaptation like that Da Vinci flick? Well, cool!
On top of all that, the director also wants to shoot the film in Boston and get Mr. King to pop in for a cameo appearance, and we know how much fun those occasions can be. (And for a whole lot more of the Eli guy and H2, Cell and his outrageous Thanksgiving trailer, stop by FirstShowing.net, because they have a 20-minute audio interview with the guy!)
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