Today in Hollywood Word Jumble:
By TK and Steven Lloyd Wilson | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (22)
There was a time when the announcement of a new John Carpenter film would make me rub my hands together in anticipation, to crack a new bottle of Scotch in celebration, to dance around with elation.
Holy shit, let’s pretend that didn’t just happen.
Anyway. I won’t rehash my adoration (fuck!) for Carpenter — God knows you can read all about it here if you want to. The point is, he’s a juggernaut of the horror genre, who’s been batting in the nine-hole for the last several years.
Two and a half years ago Dan reported that Hillary Swank had signed onto a vampire flick called Fangland, based on a novel of the same name. Two and a half years later we finally have an update: John Carpenter has signed on to direct. At this rate they’ll have a full production crew and cast in time for a Christmas release during the next ice age.
The story is supposed to be a modern retelling, of sorts, of the classic Dracula, although the New York Times apparently unflatteringly called it a “Romanian Bright Lights, Big City.” I don’t care how much you love Michael J. Fox — that’s not exactly adulation.
Here’s the condensation (goddamnit) of the plot, from Amazon (via Slashfilm):
Professional and personal aspirations collide when Evangeline, an ambitious associate producer of The Hour (“the most successful news show in American television history”) accepts Robert’s wedding proposal just before jetting off on an assignment she would rather dodge. Her uber-producer dismisses her protestations (that one’s totally not my fault!), so it’s off to Transylvania to evaluate a possible story on Romanian reputed crime lord Ion Torgu.
Apparently the part of Evangeline has already been cast, to none other than Hilary Swank. Swank has essentially disappeared since the success of Million Dollar Baby, so much that the biggest thing she’s been in for the last five years was that episode of “The Office” in which the employees hold a formal debate to determine whether Hillary Swank is hot. And what are we going to get from John Carpenter? Are we getting the director of The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, In The Mouth of Madness, Halloween … or the director of Ghosts of Mars? For a guy that was an unstoppable force of science fiction and horror for twenty years, he hasn’t produced much of anything for the last decade.
There’s at least one thing we can be sure of. These vampires will not sparkle.
So there you have it. New, thoroughly uninspiring John Carpenter news, and I am decidedly not filled with excitation.
OK, that’s enough of that nonsense. Time for some libation.
(Source: Slashfilm)
Each Time You Like, Share, Tweet or Stumble a Pajiba Post, An Angel Does the Paul Rudd Dance
← Black Celebrity Defends Homophobia by Claiming to Have a Gay Friend | Oh, B.A. Baracus: The Irony is Thick | "My Super Sweet 16" Just Got Replaced in the Human Centipede of Spoiled Princess Defecation | "You're Cut Off" Trailer →
Comments
Posted by: logar at June 8, 2010 10:10 AM
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that header pic made me happy in my pants.