After his self-assured feature film debut—2000’s “George Washington”—few could have predicted the twists and turns that David Gordon Green’s filmography has taken. Working at a furiously fast pace, just when you think you’ve got him pegged, he confounds once more. Don’t let him make a remake of the horror “Suspiria”? Fine, he’ll go shoot “Prince Avalanche” in secret with some friends and announce it after it’s done. Expect him to make more studio comedies a la “The Sitter”? He’ll bang out two indie dramas in a row practically back to back—“Joe” starring Nicolas Cage which Roadside Attractions will release on April 11th of this year (trailer here) and “Manglehorn” starring Al Pacino which should hit the festival circuit later this fall.
Continuing his experimentation with genres, THR reports Green’s next film is a thriller called “The Line” that stars Chris Pine as a border “patrol agent who finds himself in a downward spiral on the job and at home after he loses his wife and young son. He unexpectedly becomes the caretaker of a 10-year-old child who is orphaned after a shootout with a criminal cartel. As he protects the young boy by going on the run, the agent discovers he has enemies on both sides of the law and the border.” So, DGG now tackling an on-the-run thriller? Yep, sign us up.
Written by “The Walking Dead” writer/producer Sang Kyu Kim, the film is being shopped around Berlin’s European Film Market to find some distributors. No word on when the film is expected to begin production but given Green’s recent turnaround—two films in two years—expect this to begin soon.
In other news: If you’re of a certain age you may remember the original “Choose Your Own Adventure” book series from your childhood and have fond memories of doubling back through the book after you were left unsatisfied with the consequences of your decision-making. Well, 20th Century Fox—per THR—wants to cash in on that nostalgia by mounting a feature-length film with the help of “Night At The Museum” and “Reno 911!” writers Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon handling scripting duties and with “We’re The Millers” director Rawson Marshall Thurber at the helm. At this point it’s pretty unclear how they’re going to handle the obvious problem of making a “Choose Your Own Adventure” movie: how the hell do you incorporate the premise of the books without alienating general audiences? But first Garant and Lennon still have to hash out the particulars of their contracts with the studio. Will they go to page 52 to sign on the dotted line? Or will they turn to page 42 and turn down a potential franchise-starter?
Lastly, Alexandre Moors made his feature-length directorial debut last year with the overlooked DC sniper-film “Blue Caprice”—we gave it a B+—and THR is reporting he’ll follow-up that true-life tale with a remake of the 2001 South Korean film “Failan.” The film—written by “The Motorcycle Diaries” screenwriter Jose Rivera—will tell “the story of a young Russian woman who flees to America, but finds herself caught in a human trafficking operation. She arrives in New York through an arranged marriage with a gangster, but she dies before ever meeting him. He gets to know her and her tragic story through the letters she wrote him.” No word yet on when it will lens, but if you have a couple of hours, here’s the entire original movie.