One of the films we were most excited about at the Toronto International Film Festvial was Alexandre Aja‘s “Horns,” an adaptation of the devilish novel by Joe Hill (his father is some guy named Stephen King). With a terrific cast led by Daniel Radcliffe as a man who wakes up one day looking more Hellboy than human, and Juno Temple, it seemed like it could be a delightful horror-comedy that pushed both Aja (director of “Piranha 3D“) and Radcliffe out of their comfort zones. Sadly, the movie has been met with mostly middling notices. Our interest is still piqued, especially after this first clip (also Aja still seems keen on doing his crazy “Cobra the Space Pirate“).
The clip, which only runs about 30 seconds, features the bedeviled Radcliffe speaking to a man holding a gun who looks to be David Morse, although he hasn’t been mentioned as being part of the cast before and, god forbid the site who is hosting the clip set it up at all. What’s so striking about this brief moment, besides Radcliffe’s solid American accent, is the twinkly score by Phoenix confederate Rob (who also contributed the score to the “Maniac” remake from earlier this year, which Aja co-wrote and produced). Watch the clip below.
In an interview with the same site, Aja said that he still very much intends to do “Cobra the Space Pirate,” an adaptation of a classic anime and comic book hero (the comic book series originally ran from 1978 to 1984). “There is still my dream project, ‘Cobra the Space Pirate,’ which is an adaptation of a very well known manga in Japan. I grew up reading and watching and I would really like to bring it to the big screen. But it’s a very ambitious and expensive project,” Aja said. He then admitted to the site that it will probably be a pretty difficult project to get off the ground, although one he’s still firmly committed to. “It’s going to be very hard but we are trying everything, we will make it. I always hear about visual effects getting cheaper but I always see visual effects getting more expensive. They get better for sure but cheaper, I don’t think so. If you want to do a new kind of ‘Star Wars,’ it’s expensive. There are no shortcuts.”
“Horns” hasn’t been picked up officially, but we understand who is keen on acquiring it, and if so, it should have a solid 2014 release date both theatrically and on demand.