Moving easily and often between documentaries and feature film projects, Jonathan Demme has always got a few things on the go at any given time. This year alone has seen him direct theater legends Wallace Shawn and André Gregory in their re-teaming in "Wally And André Shoot Ibsen," hit the festival circuit with "Enzo Avitabile Music Life," get involved as a producer on "Song One" with Anne Hathaway set to star, and pick up a directing credit on "Old Fires." But it looks like one project has fallen off his slate.
With the Marrakech Film Festival in full swing, Demme is one of the directors receiving a tribute, and our own Jessica Kiang got to quickly sit down with the filmmaker and chat about what he's working on, or in the case of Stephen King's "11/22/63," no longer working on. "That's off the table," he shared about the film that he was first attached to in 2011.
To be certain, it's an ambitious undertaking, with the nearly 900-page book centering on Jake Epping, who travels back in time from the present to try to stop the assassination of JFK, by going to 1958 and starting a new life that will, he hopes, allow him to change the course of history. But of course, that is just one thread in a dense novel, and over the summer Demme told us, "There’s a dozen movies in '11/22/63.' We’re finding the one that we think is kind of the best of all." But it seems the director and the author ultimately couldn't see eye to eye.
"This is a big book, with lots in it. And I loved certain parts of the book for the film more than Stephen did. We're friends, and I had a lot of fun working on the script, but we were too apart on what we felt should be in and what should be out of the script," Demme said, before confirming he was off the project. "I had an option and I let it go. But I hope it's moving forward, I really want to see that movie."
Fans of King needn't be too worried, as you can't throw a rock without hitting something written by the author that is being brought to TV or the movies. In fact, just a few days ago THR reported that "The Walking Dead" and "Super 8" kids Chandler Riggs and Joel Courtney are starring in "Mercy," a film based on the King short story "Gramma." And "Under The Dome" also recently got a series order at CBS. So we're sure it won't be too long until "11/22/63" finds some new life.
As for Demme, he too has a number of things brewing, so stayed tuned as we'll have more from our conversation with him in Marrakech soon.
This is good news, I'm tired of novels being butchered for film. The best king movies were always the closest adapted ones. And to answer another posters comment, I enjoyed the Steven Weber version of the shinning a lot more, it made more sense and had better emotion. People need to read more instead of having terrible mangled stories spoon fed to them through film.
11/22/63 was on the top ten list of best books of 2011 garnered by the New York Times. NOT best-selling books but best written books. 11/22/63 is a wonderful novel! Do yourself a favor and read it! In fact read EVERY book on both the 2011 list and 2012 list of the NY Times. Superb reading: non-fiction, fiction, it's all there…
Dreamcatcher had a fantastic first half. The second half was, well, weird. I wouldn't call the film anywhere close to awful though.
Sounds like King wants Mick Garris to adapt this shit to the letter. And be completely unremarkable at best, unwatchable at worst.
This is the guy who for the longest time didn't like the Shining after all.
King's writing does NOT work on film unless you tinker with it.
Dreamcatcher is a great example of adapting a King book with all its quirks and getting a product that is unfathomably awful.
This is kind of disappointing, it would have been interesting to see Demme take on this material, but it's true that the book is far too long for a feature to tell it with any kind of cohesion, it'd make for a great miniseries on HBO though.