Well, 2016 is nearly over, and we didn’t get a single movie starring Joaquin Phoenix. But the good news is the actor has plenty in the pipeline for next year, including Lynne Ramsay‘s “You Were Never Really Here” and his reteam with Rooney Mara for the Biblical drama “Mary Magdalene.” And now he’s got a project lined up that will reteam Phoenix with a filmmaker who hasn’t directed him in over twenty years.
Variety reports that “To Die For” team Phoenix and Gus Van Sant are looking to reunite on the biopic “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot.” A project that has eluded being made for years and years in Hollywood, the film is based on the autobiography of John Callahan, who was paralyzed at the age of 21, and turned to cartooning, eventually winning acclaim (and some controversy) for his work that appeared in the New Yorker, Playboy, and Penthouse. Here’s the book synopsis:
Is it possible to find humor — corrosive, taboo-shattering, laugh-till-you-cry humor — in the story of a 38-year-old cartoonist who’s both a quadriplegic and a recovering alcoholic? The answer is yes, if the cartoonist is John Callahan — whose infamous work has graced the pages of Omni, Penthouse, and The New Yorker — and if he’s telling it in his own words and pictures. But Callahan’s uncensored account of his troubled — and sometimes impossible — life is also genuinely inspiring. Without self-pity or self-righteousness, this liberating book tells us how a quadriplegic with a healthy libido has sex, what it’s like to live in the exitless maze of the welfare system, where a cartoonist finds his comedy, and how a man with no reason to believe in anything discovers his own brand of faith.
There’s no word yet on who’s writing the screenplay, or when it might shoot, but this is the kind of powerhouse package that will certainly get people to open their wallets. So here’s hoping this incarnation of the movie (which once had Robin Williams set to play the title role) is the version that gets into production.