Taylor Hackford Tagged Articles at Cinematical

News bites for your Tuesday:

• In the wake of failed attempts at the Triple Crown and terrible horse injuries, Variety reports that Disney is getting ready to revel in Big Red, Secretariat. Mike Rich wrote the script, and Randall Wallace has signed on to direct. The film will focus on the story of owner Penny Chenery, and how she took over her father's horse farm, was slapped with a huge inheritance tax upon his death, and still managed to save the farm and horse. Secretariat then became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.
• On the more artsy side of things, Variety reports that Taylor Hackford is cooking up a film called Tenn, focusing on "the formative years" of Tennessee Williams. Robin Shushan wrote the screenplay, which delves into the playwright's "tumultuous upbringing -- complete with a scornful father, depression, conflicts about sexuality and watching his beloved sister institutionalized and lobotomized." In other words, a rip-roaring laugh fest. The project is said to be similar to Capote and how tragedy can breed success.
• Lastly, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Alexander Belyaev's The Amphibian is headed for the big screen, courtesy of Stone Village Pictures. The hunt is underway for a screenwriter, and the company is planning comic books/graphic novel adaptations to accompany the film. It's a strange twist of a story -- an American surgeon in the Amazon saves his son from a fatal respiratory disease by giving him shark gills. But when the underwater kid saves a girl from a shark attack, things get complicated as they fall for each other. It's like Aquaman meets Splash!
  

He's been gone for over 20 years, but now François Truffaut's work is once again heading to the big screen. Well, sort of. Variety reports that New Line is remaking his 1981 film, The Woman Next Door (La Femme d'a cote). Neil LaBute, the pen behind In the Company of Men, Nurse Betty, and The Wicker Man, will handle adapting the film, while Oscar-winner Taylor Hackford (Against All Odds, Ray) has signed on to direct. This will be the first time LaBute writes a feature for someone else. Now of course, he won't begin writing until the WGA strike is over, but Variety says he couldn't resist the offer, which came after Hackford and wife Helen Mirren saw LaBute's play, Wrecks.

I understand being allured by great projects, but it seems like making big writing deals while you're striking is really defeating the purpose. I wonder if he'll start writing it now, but only "officially" start later. Anyway, LaBute says: "This is a lesser-known Truffaut film about ex-lovers, long separated, who suddenly find themselves living next door to each other. Each is married. Neither tells their spouse they know each other, and it's a collision course into disaster as they rekindle a volatile relationship, with great passion and suspense. ...Taylor said if he was ever going to remake a movie, this was the one he could do something with." That's not surprising, considering the possibilities with the urges of temptation and rekindling of lust. The original starred Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant as the trysters, but who would you cast in a modern-day, English version?

Taylor Hackford has signed on to direct Good Luck, Mr. Anthony, a film "about the South African game preserve owner who snuck into Iraq after the war began in 2003 and rescued the animals in the Baghdad Zoo." Cool! I wonder if it will be as exciting as the scene in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure where he frees all the animals from the burning pet store? Aryman Bernstein (The Hurricane) and Terry Jastrow wrote the script. Hackford was nominated for a Best Director Academy Award for Ray, he was also behind the camera for the classic romance An Officer and a Gentleman, the fantastic and overlooked Stephen King adaptation Dolores Claiborne, and Devil's Advocate -- one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Fun fact alert -- did you know Hackford is married to everyone's favorite GILF Helen Mirren? Now you do!

Good Luck, Mr. Anthony will tell the true story of Lawrence Anthony, owner of a game preserve in South Africa. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Anthony was disturbed to note that when wars break out, zoo animals are often killed or simply die of neglect. Anthony crossed the border from Kuwait and found the zoo, where 1,000 animals had already died. "Engaging mercenaries to battle insurgents and poachers, Anthony rallied the zoo staff to return and protected the animals with the help of other local people." Sounds like a great story, doesn't it? I don't know what the tone will be like, but it is a Disney production, so I hope they don't go the talking elephants route. Click on this link to check out Mr. Anthony's website. Looking at the pictures of him there, I'd say Paul Giamatti would be an outstanding choice for the role...

Every studio in Hollywood has apparently refused to finance Ray director Taylor Hackford's latest pet project, a feature based on Georges Bizet's classic opera Carmen, starring Jennifer Lopez. Bizet's opera is a dark, tragic tale of a gypsy whose daliances with a soldier and a bullfighter bring down both men, and bring their respective political struggles to a head. Hackford says the suits are afraid of putting Lopez, whose fan base is largely comprised of teenage girls, into a serious, potentially R-rated project in which the heroine is eventually killed. "There is a great deal of fear in Hollywood," Hackford tells the NY Daily News, based on the fact that "many of the films are not working," with moviegoers. "We want to do a tough, hard version, but Hollywood thinks [Lopez'] audience is 13-year-old girls."

The suits couldn't really be trying to get Hackford to make his project adolescent-friendly – and if they are, it's only because they've never seen that MTV version of Carmen, starring Beyonce and subtitled, "A Hip-Hopera". The 12-21 year old audience has, I think, been served an adequete helping of Bizet. It makes perfect sense that no one would back a serious, expensive, drama (and it's not even clear whether or not Hackford plans to make it a musical) starring Jennifer Lopez, who has proven bankable only in romantic comedies and as an actress, has by most accounts never lived up to promise she showed in Out of Sight. The real question is: why doesn't Hackford just go get himself another ingenue? Last I heard, there were one or two other Latina actresses in the world...