As Oscar season nears (and, no, it hasn’t started yet… If you think Hollywoodland (IMDb), The Last Kiss (IMDb), or The Black Dahlia (IMDb) are winning anything more than a best art direction award, you’re wrong), it’s time to start thinking about serious literary adaptations. This year is full of them, including Stephen Zaillian’s updated adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men (IMDb). This should be a fine film, as Zaillian is a first rate screenwriter. Also of note, James Carville is listed as a producer on the film. In this interview from KCRW’s “The Business” Carville talks about how he got involved in the project. Naturally, it all started on the set of Old School (IMDb).
Another adaptation of note in the coming months is Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal (IMDb), starring Cate Blanchett and Dame Judi Dench. It should be no surprise that Scott Rudin is executive producing the film, as he owns nearly every literary novel of the note from the last ten years. Check out his rather staggering IMDb page. Not only does he have the “eagerly anticipated” Kavalier and Clay (IMDb) and The Corrections (IMDb), he’s also grabbed the slightly more obscure “The Smoker” (IMDb) based on a short story from David Schickler’s Kissing in Manhattan. While most of these projects are listed as in development (meaning two people once discussed the idea over lunch), obviously Rudin has the clout to bring them to fruition. The list of films does lend credence to the idea that Rudin isn’t merely a “foul mouthed, phone hurling” scourge of assistants, he’s also a reader.
