The first piece of the puzzle is source material:
This book by Alice Sebold is both heartwarming and depressing, full of life and death, joy and sadness that it practically begs to be put on the screen. So, brilliant source material: check!
Then you need a director to helm the project who truly believes in it and has the knowhow to put a fantastic novel onto screen.
Enter Peter Jackson. With his relationship with the Hobbit falling by the wayside it has given him a chance to pursue this passion project which he has talked about for a while. With his previous experience on The Lord of the Rings he knows what it takes to adapt a beloved novel into a classic film.
The source material and director can only go so far without the perfect cast to carry it all out.
Rachel Weisz will be playing one of the main roles in the film, Abigail Salmon. Even though I am slightly biased by my infatuation with her, she is genuinely gifted as an actress and has the right emotional range to portray this grieving mother.
This film is still far from being perfect but it is on its way. The rest of the cast will be very key. But announcing Rachel as the first is surely a good sign. Does anyone know of any other projects that could be this good?
2 comments:
I, personally, am iffy on the whole project of turning books into movies. Not to be "that guy" but the book usually *is* better than the movie.
I read and liked The Lovely Bones, and I'm interested to see what they do with it. When I read, it's basically a movie in my head, so we'll see if it even comes close.
One project I'm a little upset about is turning The Nanny Diaries into a movie. When I read it, Scarlett Johansson was the farthest from my mind that you could get from the character I pictured. (I guess I pictured more of a tall, slight, dark-haired person.) Plus, the book was a cute "chick lit" piece, but I have my doubts as to how the charm of it will carry over into the movie. (Voice-overs of her thoughts might help.) I feel like this happens a lot with movies. That being said...
There are times that movies help the books. I was a late Harry Potter bloomer. It wasn't until the second movie came out that I started to pay attention to it. I watched the first two movies, (surprisingly) loved them, and that led to me eventually reading the books. Of course, I lapped the filmmakers and now anxiously await the fifth movie, as well as the final book. So, I guess my nerd self will have to admit that I'm pretty pumped for the next Harry Potter movie. I do want to see that one...in the theaters.
"You know what I liked about the movie? No reading."
Just kidding, I do read.
I too actually find the books to be better than the movies (and not that I'm biased towards writers or anything). Like Running With Scissors I was VERY disappointed in.
Don't get me wrong though, I love movies. And there have been movies where after watching I went out and read the book (i.e. High Fidelity). However even with that, I've found I liked the book better.
Not to take away from the original topic though! I just don't have strong enough feelings either way about Peter Jackson or Rachel Weisz to form an opinion on the pending film.
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