derby girl Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Call it Juno on Wheels. The first image of Ellen Page in the upcoming roller derby flick Whip It has been released, showing her strapped into a girl scout uniform as she skates around a track with Drew Barrymore and Kristen Wiig. The photo above, and several others, can be viewed at USA Today (additionally, check out two extra images below)

The film represents Barrymore's directorial debut. Page stars as 17-year-old Bliss Cavendar, who is tired of competing in beauty pageants at the insistence of her mother (Marcia Gay Harden). She rebels by joining the Hurl Scouts, a women's roller derby team in Austin, Texas, and finds her true calling -- or, at least, a good place to unleash some pent-up aggression. Barrymore skates with the Scouts, as does Saturday Night Live's Wiig and the great Zoe Bell (Death Proof). Juliette Lewis is described as the villain of the piece, an opposing player determined to defeat Page and the Scouts, and the players all have cool nicknames: Smashley Simpson, Maggie Mayhem, Bloody Holly, and so forth.

As Jenni Miller advised, Fox Searchlight will distribute the film, which is set for release on October 9. Roller derby vet Shauna Cross (AKA Maggie Mayhem) wrote the screenplay, based on her own novel, Derby Girl. A very good doc about the Austin roller derby scene, Hell on Wheels, is available to view at SnagFilms (we also embedded it after the jump), and if Whip It can approach that real-life excitement, it could break out of the fall pack. Since nicknames are de rigeur for roller derby players, what nickname will you choose if you decide to see Ellen Page Whip It?

Shauna Cross, who wrote the screenplay for Whip It! and the book it's based on, has signed on to adapt the young adult book If I Stay, which will be directed by Twilight's Catherine Hardwicke.

Sounds like it will be a challenging write, because If I Stay's protagonist Mia is in a coma after a horrible car accident that killed both her parents. Similar to The Lovely Bones, the 17-year-old spends her time looking back on her life and watching her loved ones wrestle with this tragedy -- and deciding whether or not she still wants to live. It was positively reviewed by Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, and I will definitely be picking it up ASAP. The book came out in April and is still in hard cover.

If you haven't read The Lovely Bones, please do pick it up -- and hide the razor blades. It's told from the POV of a young girl who was raped and dismembered who is looking down from heaven on her family, friends, and murderer. Bring your hankies for the big-screen version helmed by Peter Jackson that's coming out a few weeks before Christmas. Cheery!

The kicker is that Summit Entertainment, which severed its Twilight ties with Hardwicke after the first Twilight and brought on board Chris Weitz to direct The Twilight Saga: New Moon, is distributing If I Stay. Seems like this project will be more in tune with Hardwicke's strengths, who has proven she can handle teen subjects with sensitivity and depth, given the right material to work with. Cross is definitely one to watch (Variety said so!), and I can't wait to see what these two do with If I Stay. Sounds like some girl power is back in the house of Summit.

A new interview over at FilmSchoolRejects.com throws some light on Whip It, the upcoming film based on the Shauna Cross novel Derby Girl, about a young girl who finds herself through excelling at roller derby. Cross tells the site that Drew Barrymore wants to take on directing the film and is gearing up for a March start. "It wasn't until after I turned in the script that Drew really fell in love with the idea of directing it," Cross says. "And I'm so glad she did because I think she will do a really lovely job. She's got that whole smiley-sweet persona, but she's one smart cookie with a lot of soul and great creative instincts." And exactly who is Barrymore after to play Bliss, the lead in the film? This is what Cross has to say about that: "Rumor is the lead could be played by an actress whose name rhymes with 'Shmellen Shmage.' But what do I know? I'm just the writer."

When asked about how autobiographical the story is, Cross says that "Like my lead character, Bliss, I grew up just outside Austin and was a pretty precocious teen, full of sarcasm and wit and hijinks (as were my friends, most of whom were older.) But I was also really sensitive, hiding that vulnerability with humor. And of course, I play roller derby." Sounds like Ellen Page material to me. As of now, Page has only a couple of projects in the pipeline -- she seems to be holding off on using her newly-minted credibility from Juno to cash in on something high-profile. Would she want to risk doing something Juno-esque this soon? Should she try to immediately start playing twenty-somethings and get away from teen-roles? Luckily, she has an agent so we don't have to answer these questions.

[via Slashfilm]