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James Franco. Blood Meridian. Someone's actually letting him do this thing.

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T

Talladega Knight

Member
Apt101 said:
Is it related to The Dark Tower? Sounds like it. Only project that is in production of some kind that springs to mind.
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Not sure. Here is the rest of the information that is being shared:

Monday (5/3) Family Members
Tuesday (5/3) - We need “guerrillas” (people fighting for their land), “junkies”
Wednesday (5/4) - We need “guerrillas” and “junkies”
Thursday (5/5) - We need “guerrillas” and “junkies”
Friday (⅚) - We need “guerrillas” and “junkies”
Monday (5/9) - We need “guerrillas” and “junkies”
Tuesday (5/10) - We need “guerrillas”
Wednesday (5/11) - We need “henchman”
Thursday (5/12) - We need “oasis dwellers” (family Members)and “playing children”- need to be avail to return on 5/20
FRIDAY (5/20) We need Oasis Dwellers (family Members)
Henchman -
Monday – Fri –(5/23 – 5/27) ALL NIGHT SHOOTS
We need 1 Bar Tender , Bouncer, Patrons in a strip club, cocktail waitree, Guerillas, starving Hustlers, 5 destitute patrons
 
B

BigAT

Member
I always wondered if Paul Thomas Anderson could pull it off. Mainly because There Will Be Blood is such a great film and always felt like it was relatively (emphasis on relatively) close in tone and imagery to Blood Meridian.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
I really hope if they do this movie they do it justice. Don't cut down on the violence, don't make the characters more attractive to mainstream audiences, make the Judge the scariest mother fucker to grace the Earth, and so on. This movie should be so fucking mean and nasty that afterwards the audience is going to have two black eyes and need to take a scalding hot shower.
 
D

DataStream

Member
BigAT said:
I always wondered if Paul Thomas Anderson could pull it off. Mainly because There Will Be Blood is such a great film and always felt like it was relatively (emphasis on relatively) close in tone and imagery to Blood Meridian.
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I actually was thinking this after my post. Also, a Greenwood score would really set the right tone.

I don't see anything in Franco's test that resembles the feel or tone of the book. A straight narrative would truly and deeply miss the point.
 
H

Haxan

Banned
Arthr2ShdsJcksn said:
Has he directed a single good one yet? I love the guy, but he needs to stay in front of the camera.
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I'm really hoping he can pull off The Masterpiece. It seems like most or all of his directorial attempts have been serious and/or literary adaptations. Maybe he'll be better with funny material. I hope. That's the way it works with his acting projects, for the most part.
 
B

Biggest-Geek-Ever

Member
I really wish I had any faith in a Franco directed project; I've read the book several times, and every damn time it leaves me exhausted, completely mentally spent. It's one of the most powerful and devastating novels I've ever read, and it'd be a herculean effort to adapt for even an amazingly talented director.

I can dig D'Onofrio as the judge, at least, even if it is typecasting from his Daredevil role.
 
D

DontBeThatGuy

Member
Arthr2ShdsJcksn said:
Has he directed a single good one yet? I love the guy, but he needs to stay in front of the camera.
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I've seen a couple of his films, and it was a waste of time, but I just looked at his upcoming directorial projects and holy shit, he's got like 8 films in post-production(or completed). It's no wonder his films get critically panned when he's probably spending a grand total of a couple weeks on each film.
 
C

Cabbagehead

Member
Someone needs to tell Franco that he can't direct. It's not an art he has in his wheel house. Seth needs to stop encouraging him and needs to tell him the truth as a friend.

Otherwise his films will drag down his career.
 
M

mariachi507

Member
I used to like James Franco, and then decided to make awful adaptations for every novel from Time Magazines top 100 list.

You would think that someone with his name recognition bringing The Sound and the Fury to the screen would bring a little anticipation. People knew better.
 
K

kswiston

Member
So two Faulkner books and now two from McCarthy. Is James Franco trying to set himself up as the Zack Snyder of American literature?
 
B

bremon

Member
I can't even imagine what this would be like. The book stuck with me, and I haven't gone back to read it again. I will at some point, but The Judge is so unsettling.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Puck Beaverton said:
The only filmmakers who should touch Blood Meridian are Terrence Malick or Paul Thomas Anderson.
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As much as I love Malick keep him the fuck away from this movie. He would film a million hours of footage to give us a 4 hour movie with barely any dialogue and two thirds of the characters cut out while the kid waxes philosophic.
 
H

hypodrmage

Member
This should be a mini-series on a Premium network with the cinematographer from Breaking Bad. This book needs time to breathe and don't think he could pull it off.
 
J

Joelstinton14

Member
I re-read this book just last week. Not to enthused with Franco directing. He is a strange one, can talk a good game but i don't think he has made something notable from a directing sense. Still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I think Conleth Hill could make a good Judge. Perhaps too obvious look wise, but his scheming in GOT certainly suits The Judge philosophical musings. Whether he has that mean streak in him i don't know.

I don't know how you would tackle this film though. In the wrong hands it could be 120 minutes of violent scenes without nothing to say.

Butchers Crossing (John Williams) deserves a film too.
 
K

KodaRuss

Member
I am interested but damn the book was tough to read, I cannot imagine watching the movie.

I am most interested in how they decide the end the movie.
 
P

pegaso

Neo Member
hypodrmage said:
This should be a mini-series on a Premium network with the cinematographer from Breaking Bad. This book needs time to breathe and don't think he could pull it off.
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There's not a lot of narrative in Blood Meridian, you can't buid a mini-series around it. There's barely enough for a movie, and even then a direct adaptation of that would be worthless as the book is kind of a poetic exploration of violence, not a story-driven novel.
 
D

DontBeThatGuy

Member
Puck Beaverton said:
The only filmmakers who should touch Blood Meridian are Terrence Malick or Paul Thomas Anderson.
Click to expand...

Imagine Badlands-Days of Heaven era Malick doing the film. It sounds amazing. (which isn't to say I didn't love The New World and The Tree of Life, 'cause I did).

He's on some other shit right now though.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Think we would have people worshiping the ground the Judge walked on despite him being the devil in the flesh like people loved everything Walter White did from Breaking Bad?
 
S

Switch Back 9

a lot of my threads involve me fucking up somehow. Perhaps I'm a moron?
HStallion said:
Think we would have people worshiping the ground the Judge walked on despite him being the devil in the flesh like people loved everything Walter White did from Breaking Bad?
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Blood Meridian is my favourite book, I've read it multiple times and watched the Yale lecture.

The Judge remains one of my all-time favourite literary characters and I love how ruthless and evil he can be. Endlessly quotable as well.

If done correctly people will be worshipping the ground he walks on. People love characters like that.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Switch Back 9 said:
Blood Meridian is my favourite book, I've read it multiple times and watched the Yale lecture.

The Judge remains one of my all-time favourite literary characters and I love how ruthless and evil he can be. Endlessly quotable as well.

If done correctly people will be worshipping the ground he walks on. People love characters like that.
Click to expand...

I meant more for all the wrong reasons kind of like the weird fandom that grew around Walter White and didn't really recognize him as the villain of the show. The Judge is one of the most memorable characters out there but not because I "loved" him. The guy was a force of nature.
 
Z

Zaphrynn

Member
HStallion said:
Think we would have people worshiping the ground the Judge walked on despite him being the devil in the flesh like people loved everything Walter White did from Breaking Bad?
Click to expand...

Probably. If the showmakers flat out making Walt say he was an asshole didn't work, I imagine the point of the Judge would fly over their heads.

I imagine Franco is going to do such a bad job on this adaptation that it won't even matter. I can't take his films seriously.

I could see Tarantino doing a good adaption. He doesn't shy away from violence (against anyone), racist themes, etc. Also his violence, while over the top, serves to make you feel the brutality of the world he's cultivated.

He's great with dialogue, casting, and music. He's very much a visual storyteller too, which would work for the book. He's proven he can film things with a western theme. I also think his obsession with using film would add to the movie as well.

Love love love Blood Meridian btw. Fantastic, heavy book.
 
I

infinit777

Member
univariate said:
Still trying to forget 11.22.63
Franco is such a mediocre actor, but maybe his directing is better.
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What did you not like about it ? I thought it was great, including the acting.

is it just his acting that you disliked?

They hate us cuz they anus
 
C

CarpeDeezNutz

Member
I dunno how they gonna film the poetry of this part.

A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.
 
A

Akahige

Member
Has Franco actually directed a movie worth watching?

The trailers of every single one of his projects doesn't do a good job of selling it as something worth watching.

*edit* praise whomever.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Haha yeah should probably have the rights to something if you plan to make a professional movie. I'm still dreading what Rogan and crew may have done to Preacher.
 
D

dosh

Member
Isn't this his second time adapting (or trying to, in that instance) a book by McCarthy?

I remember looking at Franco's filmography last year, and being astonished by the sheer number of director credits in there. I had never heard of any of these movies until then.
 
Jibbajabbawockky

Jibbajabbawockky

Member
I have no idea how you'd be able to really film Blood Meridian.

So much of what makes that book work is in the prose. I just remember Ridley Scott was tied to a film version of it for the longest time but that clearly didn't go anywhere.
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
That is a really good cast but haha God damn why him of all people to get this off the ground. It will be shit. Dude directs a movie almost every month

Edit: lmao never mind. Good update
 
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