Chris Nolan to Direct The Prisoner
From AintItCoolNews:
This is THE PRISONER. This is the best TV show ever made. And, oh yeah, it is. It seriously is. I’m not even kidding around. It really is.
I’ve got the new A&E PRISONER 40TH ANNIVERSARY MEGASET sitting on my desk right now. I’m sure Nolan’s got one sitting on his desk, and I’m sure the Peoples have it in their home, and so do the execs at Universal. I’m sure everyone involved with this announcement this morning is probably watching, just watched, or is about to watch the original series. It's the best source material you could ask for. Rich and smart and accessible and flexible. You can do almost anything with it, as long as you take a certain tone. As long as you respect a certain bent reality. Nolan's a really good choice, the right sort of emotional stylist for the material. Could we really be looking at the right reinvention of something so tricky?
See, I want to believe. I look at that combination of talent assembled to make this film happen, and I really, really want to believe. That’s what being a film geek is to me. It’s picking these projects that you want to have faith in. It’s seeing films that renew your faith. It’s constantly watching films hoping to find some new gem you’ve never seen before. That’s the way I approach moviegoing. That’s the beauty of what is happening for film geeks these days. We’re the guys making the movies now.
From CHUD:
Some time after he’s done telling the next chapter in the saga of The Dark Knight (which I still say should be titled Batman Persists or Batman Keeps On Keepin’ On), Nolan will become the latest in a long line of Hollywood people striving to bring the goddamn brilliant 60s BBC TV show to theaters. Nolan, who already imparted a cinematic mindjob with Memento, has writers David and Janet Peoples (12 Monkeys) assisting with this new version for Universal.
For those who haven't seen the ingenious original show (and shame on you), it starred the sublimely brusque Patrick McGoohan as a secret agent who, upon handing in his resignation, is abducted and relocated to a strange isolated township known as "the Village". Referred to only as "Number 6", he’s given a house and some smart threads, and then gets chased by big white bouncing spheres as he tries to figure out just what the hell he's doing there, never receiving any satisfactory answers.
From Collider:
On the topic of a Hollywood rendition of George Markstein’s and Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, I have been resolute. Don’t do it. Ever. When Simon West, director of the gloriously stupid Con Air, threatened at the turn of the millennium to use his ill-earned studio clout to helm that which should never go before cameras because it was so intensely cerebral and unapologetically oblique… I suddenly found myself reading Soldier of Fortune’s classifieds with a heretofore unexpressed vigor. To studio execs, The Prisoner is just a property; to those who loved the show, it’s nothing short of religion, and to be kept from the fumbling fingers of a barely competent schlock merchant like West. Hell, even if a sharp cat like Christopher Nolan were to somehow evince enthusiasm for the project, I’d still be leery. The only way the material could potentially be shaped into something distinct, yet still faithful to the personality of the show – and this is total pie-in-the-sky nonsense – would be if the egghead duo of David and Janet Peoples were to miraculously materialize from their almost decade-long sabbatical to take on the screenwriting duos. Yeah, that’d do it. And when that goes down, please feel free to interrupt my honeymoon with Rachel Bilson on Fuck Island to give me the good news.
Looks like my only misgiving now is to not be laying the pipe to Adam Brody’s girl on Marlon Brando’s Tahitian atoll (which, thanks to a minor dustup with the French Polynesian Assembly, I’m only now in the process of purchasing and rechristening “Fuck Island”). Other than that, it feels kinda like Christmas in mid-August around these parts. Though I’ve been lukewarm to the idea of Nolan returning to the Batman franchise sans assurances that he’s learned how to orchestrate a major action sequence, I now just want him to hurry up and direct the damn thing ‘cuz it’s currently all that stands between the director and The Prisoner. (Well, that and approval of David and Janet Peoples’ script, which shouldn’t be a problem since Nolan’s not a table-leg-gnawing moron like Paul W.S. Anderson.) This is so much more Nolan’s speed: the narrative is elliptical, the action is minimal and the goal is to confuse the audience rather than clarify everything through onerous exposition. How in the hell did this happen again?
This is THE PRISONER. This is the best TV show ever made. And, oh yeah, it is. It seriously is. I’m not even kidding around. It really is.
I’ve got the new A&E PRISONER 40TH ANNIVERSARY MEGASET sitting on my desk right now. I’m sure Nolan’s got one sitting on his desk, and I’m sure the Peoples have it in their home, and so do the execs at Universal. I’m sure everyone involved with this announcement this morning is probably watching, just watched, or is about to watch the original series. It's the best source material you could ask for. Rich and smart and accessible and flexible. You can do almost anything with it, as long as you take a certain tone. As long as you respect a certain bent reality. Nolan's a really good choice, the right sort of emotional stylist for the material. Could we really be looking at the right reinvention of something so tricky?
See, I want to believe. I look at that combination of talent assembled to make this film happen, and I really, really want to believe. That’s what being a film geek is to me. It’s picking these projects that you want to have faith in. It’s seeing films that renew your faith. It’s constantly watching films hoping to find some new gem you’ve never seen before. That’s the way I approach moviegoing. That’s the beauty of what is happening for film geeks these days. We’re the guys making the movies now.
From CHUD:
Some time after he’s done telling the next chapter in the saga of The Dark Knight (which I still say should be titled Batman Persists or Batman Keeps On Keepin’ On), Nolan will become the latest in a long line of Hollywood people striving to bring the goddamn brilliant 60s BBC TV show to theaters. Nolan, who already imparted a cinematic mindjob with Memento, has writers David and Janet Peoples (12 Monkeys) assisting with this new version for Universal.
For those who haven't seen the ingenious original show (and shame on you), it starred the sublimely brusque Patrick McGoohan as a secret agent who, upon handing in his resignation, is abducted and relocated to a strange isolated township known as "the Village". Referred to only as "Number 6", he’s given a house and some smart threads, and then gets chased by big white bouncing spheres as he tries to figure out just what the hell he's doing there, never receiving any satisfactory answers.
From Collider:
On the topic of a Hollywood rendition of George Markstein’s and Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, I have been resolute. Don’t do it. Ever. When Simon West, director of the gloriously stupid Con Air, threatened at the turn of the millennium to use his ill-earned studio clout to helm that which should never go before cameras because it was so intensely cerebral and unapologetically oblique… I suddenly found myself reading Soldier of Fortune’s classifieds with a heretofore unexpressed vigor. To studio execs, The Prisoner is just a property; to those who loved the show, it’s nothing short of religion, and to be kept from the fumbling fingers of a barely competent schlock merchant like West. Hell, even if a sharp cat like Christopher Nolan were to somehow evince enthusiasm for the project, I’d still be leery. The only way the material could potentially be shaped into something distinct, yet still faithful to the personality of the show – and this is total pie-in-the-sky nonsense – would be if the egghead duo of David and Janet Peoples were to miraculously materialize from their almost decade-long sabbatical to take on the screenwriting duos. Yeah, that’d do it. And when that goes down, please feel free to interrupt my honeymoon with Rachel Bilson on Fuck Island to give me the good news.
Looks like my only misgiving now is to not be laying the pipe to Adam Brody’s girl on Marlon Brando’s Tahitian atoll (which, thanks to a minor dustup with the French Polynesian Assembly, I’m only now in the process of purchasing and rechristening “Fuck Island”). Other than that, it feels kinda like Christmas in mid-August around these parts. Though I’ve been lukewarm to the idea of Nolan returning to the Batman franchise sans assurances that he’s learned how to orchestrate a major action sequence, I now just want him to hurry up and direct the damn thing ‘cuz it’s currently all that stands between the director and The Prisoner. (Well, that and approval of David and Janet Peoples’ script, which shouldn’t be a problem since Nolan’s not a table-leg-gnawing moron like Paul W.S. Anderson.) This is so much more Nolan’s speed: the narrative is elliptical, the action is minimal and the goal is to confuse the audience rather than clarify everything through onerous exposition. How in the hell did this happen again?
Labels: Movies, The Prisoner
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