Rabbit-proofFence Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Everyone loves a rogue, and "Art Williams, Jr." was a rogue. Williams -- not his real name -- was a genius counterfeiter, circumventing even the state-of-the-art protections of new American bills. According to a 2005 Rolling Stone article (not available online), his fake notes were so good that "an FBI agent is said to have once counted $3,300 of his fakes on the hood of a police cruiser, then handed them back." He printed some $10 million in phony $100 bills before finally getting sent to jail last year, despite having been fingered by the FBI several times prior to that.

In what sounds sort of like Catch Me If You Can redux, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Art's life will be brought to the screen in The Art of Making Money, with Philip Noyce slated to direct after he finishes his Scarlett Johanson-led Mary Queen of Scots project. First-timer Frank Baldwin will write the screenplay from the Rolling Stone article (which will itself soon become a book). It sounds like a return to the good old mainstream days of Clear and Present Danger and The Bone Collector for Noyce, and a departure from his recent arthouse stylings (which included the absolutely sensational Rabbit-Proof Fence).

Weirdly, I can't google up anything on the real guy behind this story -- aside from the Rolling Stone article, he may as well not exist. Not having his real name doesn't help, but I'd have thought something would have turned up. I'll keep trying.

After the success of Rabbit-Proof Fence, Aussie director Phillip Noyce (who, in his non-indie moments, used to hang out with Jack Ryan) immediately went searching for another, Australia-based story to bring to the screen. He quickly settled on Dirt Music, a Booker Prize-nominated novel by Tim Winton, picked up the rights, and started the arduous task of signing stars who can both act and attract investors with the sparkly trail of Hollywood stardust they trail behind them. And, according to Variety this morning, Noyce's quest is almost at an end: He's got Rachel Weisz and Heath Ledger just inches away from signing on the dotted line.

Though Variety describes Winton's novel as being a two-character story, a look at Amazon reveals there are actually three people involved, which makes it hard to be sure exactly who Ledger is negotiating to play. The story takes place in "a remote fishing village in Western Australia," and was described by Publishers Weekly as "a tale of three characters' perilous journey into the Australian wilderness in efforts to escape and atone for their pasts." Oh good -- so it's uplifting. Weisz will play a former nurse who likes to both take risks and drink (a lot), while Ledger will be either the widowed lobster fisherman with whom she ends up living (in an arrangement that sounds more like roommates than romance) or a fish poacher in the village "who breaks the law to keep his mind from tragic memories." It's the latter character (his name is Luther, for the curious among you) who gives the story its name: His family (all of whom seem to be dead) once played country blues, AKA dirt music. Got all that?

Production on the film is entirely dependent upon Noyce's ability to track down financing, so it'll likely be quite a while before we get to see it.