Updated: Deadline says William H. Macy is now committed to star in the film. Macy stars in “Dirty Girl” which was just bought by The Weinstein Company yesterday at the Toronto International Film Festival. Original story as follows…
Film adaptations of Elmore Leonard’s works run the gamut from the sublime (“Out of Sight”) to the tedious (2003’s “The Big Bounce”) covering all points in between (“Jackie Brown,” “Get Shorty,” “3:10 to Yuma,” and “Be Cool” among others), not to mention the TV shows that have been adapted from or inspired by his material, notably this year’s FX Timothy Olyphant-starrer “Justified.” So when news arrives of yet another Leonard adaptation, it’s hard to know whether to get excited or just to expect another outing for some B-listers wearing snazzy duds and cracking wise. Hurray, or possibly boo, then, to the Variety report that actor/director/famous son Charles Matthau is teaming with Myriad Pictures to bring Leonard’s 1988 novel, “Freaky Deaky,” to the big screen.
The Detroit-based novel reportedly features a twisty plot involving a bomb-making one-time couple with radical politics who reunite for a score worth millions, and the “last day on the bomb squad” cop charged with pursuing them, and while the crime-and-police milieu is familiar ground for Leonard, the bomb-making details should add some pyrotechnics to the proceedings. The only name attached so far is director Matthau, whose biggest directorial outings to date have been 2005’s Estella Warren rom-com “Her Minor Thing” (nope, us neither) and the oddly cast forthcoming jazz musical “Baby-O” (starring Eric Roberts, Billy Burke and Theresa Russell). It remains to be seen what calibre of talent he can assemble for this project – as the previously mentioned films prove, Leonard adaptations seem to live or die not just by the quality of the screenplay, but are also peculiarly dependent on a certain alchemy happening at the casting stage. Get it right, and you’ve got George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez steaming up the lens, get it wrong and you’ve got Morgan Freeman and Owen Wilson behaving like they’re in different films. Here’s hoping Mr. Matthau gets something of the former’s chemistry onscreen, because this sounds like it could be fun.
Also, hopefully Matthau Jr. can fix the book's ending, which I recall as a total clusterfuck. Leonard can't do endings, so even the good Leonard adaptations are doomed to third act problems (Out of Sight especially).
I worked on a movie Charlie Matthau directed that fell apart in production and was never finished (the crew was never paid, we went on strike, yadda yadda yadda).
He spent his time banging extras and sleeping in his director's chair during takes while ADs called "action". Hilarious to see how much people just don't give a shit, sometimes.
One of Mr. Leonard's best books. Even the author thinks so. This is scary. I wish Tarantino would follow through on some of the shit he runs his mouth about.