Friday
26Jun2009
Darabont Not Giving Up on 'Fahrenheit 451'...Yet
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 1:51AM
A good friend of mine has said to me on a couple of occasions that Frank
Darabont's screenplay for The Shawshank Redemption isn't just a great script, it's actually
great literature. That's true, and the number of screenplays in that category number in the teens,
maybe. It reads like a classic novel, as do Chinatown, Lawrence of Arabia, Sunset
Blvd, and certainly Casablanca.
"Hollywood doesn't trust smart material...I actually had a studio head read that script and say: 'Wow, that's the best and smartest script that I've read since running this studio but I can't possibly greenlight it.' I asked why and he says, 'How am I going to get 13-year-olds to show up at the theater?' And I said, 'Well, lets make a good movie and I bet that will take care of itself.'""But that argument cut absolutely no ice. The movie was basically too smart for this person, too metaphorical, etc., etc. It's a bit of a battle you've got to fight. When you're faced with it, how do you overcome that prejudice?"I suppose the answer is to make it more cheaply, which you hate to do because of what you might need to sacrifice. Then again, movies cost too damn much money to make, distribute, and market, anyway. Look at Slumdog. An extremely modest budget of around $15 million, and when one studio went under, it nearly got dropped in the DVD-only market. Fox comes in, saves it, turns it into a goldmine. Nothing about the film changed. So, if Darabont can shoot this with the Red camera all the kids are crazy about and if he can find a way to present the dystopian future society without too much expense, I'd say there's a chance. But he's right: You're not getting $100 million for this movie because you probably won't make $100 million.
Colin Boyd | Permalink | in Adaptations, Frank Darabont | Print Article | Email Article | 1 Comment | Share Article
Reader Comments (1)
this was the first bradbury i read, when i was around 9 or so (i was an odd child)... it remains one of my favourite books, and i often laugh at the irony when it's put on 'banned' book lists for schools.
the original version was okay... still, a re-make is necessary, and it's sad the studios are locked into making transformers 2, yet, let excellent scripts go the way of the ignore pile.
maybe fox will pick it up... we can hope.