Conan Screenwriter Opens Up About Failure, and 5 Other Stories You'll Be Talking About Today
Also in this Wednesday edition of The Broadsheet: Universal may have put Ouija back in the box... 360 heads to London... Ed Zwick will climb the The Great Wall... and more ahead.
· As you may have heard, the Marcus Nispel-directed remake of Conan the Barbarian didn't slay many comers at the box office last weekend; the much-hyped splatterfest opened in fourth place with barely over $10 million in ticket sales. Sean Hood (Halloween: Resurrection) was one of four credited screenwriters on the film, and on Tuesday he took to the Q&A site Quora to answer the question: "What's it like to have your film flop at the box office?" Apparently, it's a lot like a political campaign, and there's always plenty of blame to spread around:
Unfortunately, the work I do as a script doctor is hard to defend if the movie flops. I know that those who have read my Conan shooting script agree that much of the work I did on story and character never made it to screen. I myself know that given the difficulties of rewriting a script in the middle of production, I made vast improvements on the draft that came before me. But its still much like doing great work on a losing campaign. All anyone in the general public knows, all anyone in the industry remembers, is the flop. A loss is a loss.
Translation: Hood made the best lemonade he could out of the Conan lemons! Click through to Quora to read the entire post. [Quora]
· It looks like Universal may have mercifully put the planned screen adaptation of Ouija that no one wanted back in the box. According to a report from Vulture, the film has been put in a turnaround, with the studio allowing producer Michael Bay and director McG the chance to shop Ouija to another studio in the next week. If this is all accurate, Universal would be forced to pay Ouija rights holder Hasbro a $5 million penalty for passing on the film. Stay tuned... [Vulture]
· After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival next month, the Fernando Meirelles-directed drama 360 will open BFI's 55th London Film Festival. Rachel Weisz, Jude Law and Anthony Hopkins star. [Deadline]
· Ed Zwick will direct The Great Wall for Legendary East, the Hong Kong-based production company started by Legendary. The film will focus on the mysteries of the Great Wall of China, with Marshall Herskovitz writing the script. [Deadline]
· The kooky cast of Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim keeps getting more kooky. Clifton Collins has joined Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnan and Charlie Day in the big budget alien invasion flick. [Variety]
· Release dates! Warner Bros. has set the low budget Todd Phillips-produced comedy Project X for March 2, 2012. Meanwhile, Sylvester Stallone's Bullet in the Head lands on April 13, 2012. Mark those calendars! [Deadline]