Selling Out
By Tom Macy
October 21, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
So are 100 word children's books the next big thing? Will Hollywood react to last weekend the way they did when Transformers proved '80s cartoons to be an untouched mountain of gold (Battleship and Thundercats on their way!)? True, there's a bit of a discrepancy in the size of their opening weekends. But Wild Things' (I told you quiet down!) success cannot be, and I'm sure will not be, ignored. There are a lot of titles out there that people have had a relationship with from a young age. And when you can create an instant connection in enough people from a movie title alone, then you have the most sought after commodity in all commercial movie-making on your hands: The Built-In Audience.
Ludicrous you say? Isn't that what you thought when Disney was turning a theme park ride into a movie? A freaking movie about Lego is in the works! I predict this is not the last adaptation of this kind we are going to see. How long the fad will endure depends on whether people keep paying to see renditions of their bedtime stories on the big screen. But there will be at least a few more. The only question is what's next? What follows are five likely candidates. I have included my personal prediction of how each project will go down. I can't say I'm too optimistic.
Blueberries For Sal
This is the story of a girl who goes blueberry picking with her mom but wanders off and gets confused with another young 'un and her mother. The only problem is that other mother and daughter are bears! Could go a lot of directions. I'm picturing a disturbing Werner Herzog thriller about Sal's coming of age while she is forced to survive against the harsh cruelties of nature. The blueberries are a great metaphor - for what I don't know (whoever got that reference I owe a beer). It will be a chilling ride as the endless fields that once blossomed with opportunity soon devolve into an iron prison of fruit. If it had been 2006 either Dakota Fanning or Abigail Breslin would have been a lock to star. Instead the studio will probably push for Miley Cyrus. Stay strong, Werner.
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
I know Joel Schumacher already made this in 1993 with Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas. But a more faithful adaptation of AatTHNGVBD (gesundheit) could have some real potential. Well, faithful as in make the lead character a kid and have the book be the first 30 minutes of the movie. As things get progressively worse Alexander descends into such madness that when it reaches a fever pitch he is driven to violence. A horror movie where the kid is the killer? Haven't seen that before! Throw in that built-in audience and you've got yourself green lights all the way down 5th Avenue. Of course, the studio could go another route and just call it a prequel to Halloween. Both are viable. Either way, Rob Zombie will direct.
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Two words. Michel Gondry. This one I would be actually excited to see. Just like Spike Jonze with Wild Th-, um, his most recent film, Gondry's imaginative visual aesthetic would bring a new dimension to the material that would expand on the essence of the book, not add to it. It's hard to speculate what direction he'd go and I'd really rather not. All I know is, I don't want any extra plot or extraneous characters. Just 84 minutes of trippy purple cardboard cuts outs and I'll be happy. Do your thing Michel. You know what? I would not be surprised if this happened.
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
After many years of working successfully together, the title characters struggle against the rising competition from modern, diesel-powered shovels. Who best to handle the anthropomorphizing of a steam shovel? This is an easy one. Michael Bay all the way. But unlike his other films featuring talking metal contraptions, on top of it he's going to go the Pearl Harbor route and try to make it a love story between a Man and his Steam Shovel Mary-Anne. Actually, that's not very far off from the book. Mike Mulligan would obviously be played by Mark Wahlberg because he's just so darned blue collar I can't stand it! The Mary Anne will be CGIed to the max. The only change made will be in the end when the diesel-shovels become too powerful for humanity to control them. This is where Mike makes a few "improvements" on Mary-Anne - namely rocket boosters and lazer cannons. The end will remain mostly the same. Because they'll be going for the blockbuster in December slot, the two sacrifice themselves for glory, resulting in Mary-Anne being converted to a furnace while Mike grows old at her side. After all, nothing sways the Academy more than a blockbuster with heart.
Goodnight Moon
Okay, we all know that Christopher Walken is the voice of the rabbit. That's a given. Anyone who wouldn't pay money to see Goodnight Moon starring Christopher Walken as a talking Rabbit is not welcome at this year's Lord of the Rings Trilogy Tuesday - I mean car-fixing, meat-eating, punching-each-other-in-the-face party. There's just the problem that once you've got everyone's money you still have to show them something when they get to their seats. Hmmm. Okay, I got it. Here's the tagline: Every night he said good night to the moon. And then one night it answered back. Directed my M. Night Shyamalan. In the end, it turns out the rabbit is actually in a science lab and hallucinating from all experiments they're doing on him and that the moon - voiced by Bruce Willis - was actually just a giant spotlight the whole time. Whoa man! I never saw that coming! With the added animal rights issues on its side, this one's a can't miss.
Jesus, I hope I'm wrong.