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Weird and Financially Unsound News from Andy Serkis and Nick Cave

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (17)

andy_serkisdad.jpg

According to Screen Daily, Andy Serkis — who you may know best as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy — is collaborating with Nick Cave — he of the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fame — on a motion-capture version of The Threepenny Opera.

The Threepenny Opera, more famous to most of you as the 1989 film version of Mack the Knife, is a Bertolt Brecht Marxist musical critique of capitalism. The story follows a criminal, Mackheath, and his troubles with his father in law, who controls all the Beggars in London and who is trying to have him killed.

Don’t ask me why this is big news, and don’t ask me if this will ever actually get made. Andy Serkis is clearly the guy you want if you’re making a motion capture movie (in addition to LoTR, he’s also got mo-cap experience as King Kong and the forthcoming The Adventures or Tintin), and maybe Nick Cave is perfect to write the music for an updated Brechtian musical cause he’s, like, Nick Cave, but this idea seems to have no financial viability, and motion capture is expensive.

All of which is to say: Maybe this is a great idea, but you know how well great ideas work in Hollywood? You really need not look any further than Nick Cave himself, who wrote the ridiculously underseen Western The Proposition. I wouldn’t expect The Threepenny Opera to get much further than the script and composition stage — and maybe, someday, Cave and the Bad Seeds will turn the score into a great stage show. But don’t expect much else.









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Comments

Peasant like optimism

Posted by: bob at February 16, 2010 9:40 AM

The Threepenny Opera is awesome. Thank goodness it'll never get made. Can I get an Amen to having a story (hopefully) not ruined by inane scriptwriters?

Posted by: esme at February 16, 2010 9:46 AM

AMEN sistah!

Posted by: esme at February 16, 2010 9:46 AM

You had me at Nick Cave...

Posted by: ingres at February 16, 2010 10:03 AM

Paul Shanklin rules.

Posted by: , at February 16, 2010 10:13 AM

You had me at Nick Cave also, but I have a bigger problem. My grandmother lived to be almost one hundred. Toward the end her mind was sharp but the body had outlived itself. She was incontinent, locked in a hunched over position, had lost most of her hair and teeth falling out and was really just a bag of bones with some skin that had lost all tone. In short, she looked very much like Gollum in that picture and I simply can't log on to Pajiba to make snarky comments with Granny staring back at me all day.

Posted by: PaddyDog at February 16, 2010 10:27 AM

As much as I love Nick Cave...um, Threepenny Opera already has music. By the amazing and inimitable Kurt Weill. So, we just gonna throw that out, now?

Posted by: Tammy at February 16, 2010 10:34 AM

You had me at Marxism.

Posted by: superasente at February 16, 2010 10:34 AM

The only version of Threepenny that ever needs to be put on film is the 2005? 2006? Broadway revival. Alan Cumming as Macheath, Cindy Lauper as Jenny, Jim Dale as Mr. Peachum, Ana Gasteyer as Mrs. Peachum, Nellie McKay as Polly Peachum, and a fantastic drag queen as Lucy Brown. New book translation by Wallace Shawn. Costumes, set, and general aesthetic sort of a "Rocky Horror meets Edward Scissorhands meets Hedwig and the Angry Inch."

Possibly one of the best productions I've ever seen, and they didn't even release a soundtrack. I'm bitter as hell.

Posted by: That Girl at February 16, 2010 10:35 AM

By the amazing and inimitable Kurt Weill. So, we just gonna throw that out, now?

Who said he was rewriting it?

Also, Nick does do a mean "Mack The Knife".

Posted by: Jay at February 16, 2010 10:39 AM

I can get behind Nick Cave arranging it - the write-up made it sound to me like he was writing all-new tunes, which is just wrong. Then again, I have a disproportionate love for anything Brecht - thanks, theater school! :-P

Posted by: Tammy at February 16, 2010 10:43 AM

No, I believe he's got a good respect for Weill. Have you ever seen the "September Songs" tribute show on PBS?

Posted by: Jay at February 16, 2010 10:46 AM

You had me at "financially unsound".

Posted by: D-Day at February 16, 2010 10:49 AM

"Rocky Horror meets Edward Scissorhands meets Hedwig and the Angry Inch."

Possibly one of the best productions I've ever seen,

Okay, so in summation; excessive androgeny + music + scissors = FUN FUN FUN!

Okay, got it.

:)

Posted by: D-Day at February 16, 2010 10:52 AM

faaaaancy glooooves though, has old McHeath, dear, so there's nevaaah, nevaaah a trace a reeed .

Dammit, now I'm gonna have that in my head all day. Bobby Darin version, though.

Posted by: figgy at February 16, 2010 12:58 PM

You had me at weird........

Posted by: frank (aka frank_247 aka the lone Scotsman) at February 16, 2010 7:13 PM

You had me at new film.

Posted by: Miriam at February 17, 2010 8:05 AM