Sales Report
In general, when I track script acquisitions and projects that get set up in Hwood, there aren’t a lot of surprises. Trends emerge over time such as the current obsession with graphic novels and comic book characters, but more often than not, the daily dip into the sales report finds one ‘similar but different’ project after another.
And then there are days like today, where the cumulative effect of deals is astonishing in its breadth of material. Check this out:
Title: Burke and Hare
Logline: Centers on two bankrobbers in 19th century Edinburgh.
Writer: Piers Ashworth Nick Moorcroft
Genre: Black Comedy
More: Based on a true story. Ealing’s Barnaby Thompson will produce. James Spring will executive produce. John Landis will direct.
Title: In the Heights
Logline: Takes place over three days in the upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, where a bodega owner inherits his late grandmother’s lottery winnings and plans to shutter his store and retire on a beach in the Dominican Republic. Trying to say farewell to the characters who live on the block, he realizes that his neighbors are his real family, and he’s torn about leaving.
Writer: Quiara Alegria Hudes
Genre: Musical
More: Based on the Tony Award winning Broadway musical, created by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda and Superb’s Meryl Poster will produce. Original Broadway producers Kevin McCollum, Jeffrey Seller and Jill Furman will executive produce. Miranda will star.
Title: Keep Coming Back
Logline: A young man with a sheltered upbringing joins an Alcoholics Anonymous group in order to seduce the woman of his dreams.
Writer: Will Aldis
Genre: Comedy
Logged: 11/7/2008
More: Rachel Rothman, Tucker Tooley and Dan Keston will produce. William H. Macy will direct. Macy, Milla Jovovich and Steve Buscemi will star.
Title: Midnight’s Children
Logline: Saleem Sinai, who was born at the stroke of midnight on August 15 1947, as India gains independence from the British Empire, discovers he shares special powers with every other person born on the same day.
Writer: Deepa Mehta Salman Rushdie
Genre: Drama Fantasy
More: To be based on Salman Rushdie’s 1981 novel of the same name. David Hamilton will produce. Deepa Mehta will direct. Shabana Azmi will star.
Title: Mona Lisa
Logline: A small-time chauffeur delves into the New York underbelly with a high-class call girl.
Writer: Larry Clark David Reeves
Genre: Drama
More: Remake of the 1986 film. Handmade will produce. Larry Clark will direct. Hayden Christensen to possibly star.
Title: Oldboy
Logline: A man gets kidnapped and held in a shabby cell for 15 years without explanation. Suddenly, he’s released and given money, a cell phone and clothes and is set on a path to discover who destroyed his life so he can take revenge.
Genre: Drama
More: Remake of the 2003 Korean film. Steven Spielberg will produce. Will Smith will star. First announced in August 2004.
Title: Tales From the Gangster Squad
Logline: In 1946, in a chaotic and corrupt Los Angeles, gangsters brazenly engage in shootouts and drive-by shootings. The LAPD forms what is dubbed the Gangster Squad to keep East Coast Mafia out of the city. The squad’s anything goes approach lasts through the 1950s.
Writer: Paul Lieberman (journalist)
Genre: Mob Crime
More: Seven-part series in Los Angeles Times. Dan Lin will produce. Lin’s Jon Silk will co-produce. Project is currently out to screenwriters.
Title: The Beaver
Logline: A man walks around with a beaver puppet on his hand, treating it as something close to a human creature with human feelings.
Writer: Kyle Killen
Genre: Comedy Drama
More: Anonymous will produce. No director is attached yet. Steve Carell will star.
As you go through the list, it’s like each story is somehow radically different than the preceding project, ending with a totally absurd premise of Steve Carell walking around with a beaver puppet on his hand! You’ve got period pieces, black comedies, musicals, dramas, mob crime — each one a genuinely interesting premise.
Apparently God must have sprinkled something in Hwood’s creative waters today.