It seems like only yesterday we were talking about the reporting of wishlists, and the problems therein. In fact, it was Friday, but some more evidence turned up over the weekend as to why people should sometimes hold fire before pressing ‘Publish.’
The Wrap reported last week that both William Monahan, writer of “The Departed” and director of the upcoming “London Boulevard,” and David Michôd, director of “Animal Kingdom,” were top of the list to helm an adaptation of a novel by Ken Bruen (who also wrote “London Boulevard“), “Once Were Cops,” about a psychotic Irish cop on an exchange program to the NYPD.
The trouble is, Collider, who conducted a lengthy, must-read interview with Monahan last week, got in touch with the writer-director about the project, and he told them “I’m not on any short list for “Once Were Cops,” I never even heard about it.” This doesn’t mean that The Wrap’s report was incorrect as such — it’s entirely possible that producers Steven Sawalich and Gil Adler had a wishlist with Monahan’s name on it. But the list was reported prematurely, seemingly before any of the directors involved had been approached. In the business, we like to call that pissing in the wind.
This is the issue with wishlist stories, every project in gestation will have a list of directors and actors who, in an ideal world, the producers would like to have involved, but often it won’t get any further than a phonecall and a polite denial. And with Monahan recently signing on to write and direct the period drama “Becket,” that appears to be his next likely gig. To quote “Bad Santa,” “Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which fills up first.”
Another rumor that reared its head again over the weekend was that “Pacific Rim,” the hot spec script from “Clash of the Titans” writer Travis Beacham, was being folded into Legendary Pictures‘ upcoming reboot of “Godzilla.” Latino Review broke the ‘news’ a few months back, and, despite a fairly comprehensive takedown by Drew McWeeny of HitFix not long after, the rumor continued to get some traction, with Ain’t It Cool repeating it recently.
So, frustrated, Beacham took to Twitter to repeat “PACIFIC RIM IS NOT GODZILLA. It was never Godzilla. it will never be Godzilla. Pacific Rim is Pacific Rim.” So there we go: the original report seems to be 100% false. Beacham also promised ‘exciting developments’ on the project soon — maybe it’s being folded into Legendary’s upcoming reboot of “Godzilla?” What? Oh, right. We imagine it involves a director being attached, so we’ll keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, Dave Callaham (“The Expendables,” “Doom“) continues to work away on “Godzilla,” and we will continue to fear that project like it was a 60-foot moth creature.