Filed under: Drama, Deals, DIY/Filmmaking
A man makes a few blockbuster films full of grandoise scenes of rings and hobbits, or a giant ape climbing the Empire State building, and his past is forgotten. However, as much as it seems strange for Peter Jackson to have adapted Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, and subsequently shop it around, it's old hat for him. In 1994, there was his highly-regarded feature, Heavenly Creatures. The film was based upon the true story of two young girls who murdered the one's mother in an attempt to stay together. It's a pretty highly-remembered true-crime story which is probably further fueled by the fact that one of the girls was none other than prolific writer, Anne Perry.So, Jackson's been shopping around this script, which instead tackles a young girl as the victim, but there haven't been any takers. This could, perchance, be a result of the high price that he's attached to it -- $65 million plus producing and directing fees for Jackson. Or, could it be the script itself? New York magazine got their hands on the script and just gave it an interesting review. While they say that it starts off spot on, with the same initial line from the book, it fails in its accuracy. Now, I don't mean that it is inaccurate, but that the magazine says the screenplay is so accurate that it fails to find the magic: "So much of the novel's action is stuffed into the screenplay, in fact, that little of it registers as important -- to the family left behind, or to Susie." While I can't comment on the script, the magazine is spot-on in its overall evaluation of the project. Lovely Bones is a dark and intriguing story that screams indie treatment, but it's not really the stuff blockbusters are made of. Can Bones swim with the pressure of a huge budget, or is it doomed to sink before it even gets its first stroke in?Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
