Documentary Oscar winner Louie Psihoyos (“The Cove”) isn’t stretching out on the couch, snuggling with his Academy Award (or signing on to a teen-pop star biopic for a day) – apparently, according to Momentum, via /Film, he’s already shooting his next documentary, tentatively titled “The Singing Planet.”
The director’s sophomore film (which will be in exciting 3-D!) will focus on the extinction of wild life thanks to humanity’s various exploits. “I think it’s the biggest story out there right now,” he told Momentum. He’s probably right. Filming will take place in “The Gulf, Polynesia, all over the Pacific including Cocos and Galapagos, Europe,” with others TBD.
While we’re glad he’s taking another critical eye at society, who knows how this one will fly with audiences. “The Cove” swept festivals and won the Oscar, and yes, some people went to see it (making $1 million world wide), but who knows how audiences will feel without an evil scapegoat. This is one subject that we’re all apart of – It’s easy to look at a small Japanese town and be disgusted and outraged with how they treat dolphins. Sure, maybe the film-makers hoped film-goers would examine how we treat other animals in our respective societies, but if so, it was an after-thought. This one is precisely about us and how we’re treating our planet, and who knows how many people are actually going to want to see something that fatalistic. We’re glad Psihoyos is back out there so soon and continuing his activism, and yeah, we’ll see it and don’t mind being called assholes (see our comments section) but the outside appeal of this one isn’t so huge.
Also of note is the grand scale of this project. “The Cove” was relatively small, the subject being a fishing town in Japan. This film, being about, you know, the world, will cover entire countries. The director proved himself to be a very smart filmmaker, but who knows if he’ll have the amount of discipline he had on his first film with the second. It’s a lot more to tackle, and it’ll be easy to get lost and buried in the sheer amount of footage and subject matter.
Though maybe he’ll knock it out of the park again, and hopefully he does. Chances are we won’t see this one for a while, as it sounds like there’s still plenty of work to be done.