TheMonsterOfFlorence Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Christopher McQuarrie Lands 'The Champions' and 'The Monster of Florence'
Filed under: Action », Drama », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Thrillers », Deals », Mystery & Suspense », United Artists », Scripts », Newsstand », Remakes and Sequels »
As William Goss noted yesterday, Guillermo Del Toro must be allergic to sleep. He's moving forward with another producing project on his insanely busy slate -- The Champions, a big screen version of the British television series of the 60s. Variety reports that Christopher McQuarrie will be penning the script for United Artists, and acting as a producer alongside Del Toro, Tom Cruise, and Paula Wagner. Del Toro optioned the project last November, and seemingly mindful of the anniversary, has brought on McQuarrie. Frankly, I'm surprised The Champions hasn't been grabbed long before now, since everyone is dying to have a franchise of superheroes. The series (which ran for a single year) followed a team of government agents who were rescued from a plane crash in the Himalayas by an advanced civilization. As if rescue wasn't nice enough, the super civilization gave them superpowers. Yeah, this is totally going to end up a franchise.
Del Toro has apparently found himself a writer as happy to be sans sleep as he is -- McQuarrie is a hot property at UA after Valkyrie. In addition to The Champions, he'll also be penning and producing The Monster of Florence. Based on Douglas Preston's book, it will follow his investigation into the serial killer nicknamed the Monster of Florence, Italy's version of Jack the Ripper. Preston discovered that one of the murders had been committed on his just-purchased Italian property, and decided to pair up with Italian journalist Mario Spezi to try and solve the case. Their well-meaning investigation ended up embroiled in controversy, arrests, and all kinds of tense insanity that should make for a really enjoyable crime movie -- and be easy peasy for the writer of The Usual Suspects.
Tom Cruise to Play a Serial Killer?
Filed under: Thrillers », Casting », Deals », Mystery & Suspense », Fandom », Tom Cruise »
I bet when you woke up this morning, you thought the same thing I did: "When are we going to get to see Tom Cruise viciously murder a whole bunch of people on the big screen ... again?" Right? We're SO on the same wavelength here, like internet, movie-related soul mates from outer space! That said, fellow soul mate, Variety tells us that Cruise and United Artists have acquired rights to The Monster of Florence, based on the book by Douglas Preston. Cruise will produce and possibly star, though there's no word on whether he'd play the killer or one of the men trying to crack the case.This is actually a pretty crazy story, and I believe it was the subject of a recent 48 Hours Mystery (or Dateline) where these two guys -- Preston and Italian journalist Mario Spezi -- were on an intense search to find out who exactly committed eight gruesome double homicides between the years of 1968 and 1985. Both men claimed to have found the guy, but then -- since they knew so much about the case -- both became actual suspects themselves. It's a pretty wild story and one that's ripe for the big-screen treatment. Only problem is it kinda suffers from "the Zodiac issue" where no one currently knows who the killer is, and so they won't be able to tie a nice, shiny bow around this puppy. Regardless, it's a good story and I'm curious to see what they do with it. You?









