As such, I'm not immune from these fantasies, and during some slow nights this past holiday season, when I needed to economize and couldn't justify going out to the movies nor muster interest in what I had on DVD at home, I thus came up with a list of bogus blockbusters of the future that I would lurve to see. As much as I often dream of a world where the directors I love that are currently stuck working network television and teaching classes would get million dollar budgets again, and Michael Bay would have to hold a bake sale just to shoot a SnapChat photo, on this occasion I chose to stick to writers and directors currently active and "hot" right now, for the same reason that George Carlin and Billy Heeny "thought about" girls in the neighborhood: it seems more possible. At least a few of the talents in question have indeed visited in here in the past, so maaaaaaaaybeeeeee this might spark some imagination to make these a reality in the not-too-distant-future, next Summer A.D.
(That being said, aside from novel adaptations, let's consider these pitches under common-law-copyright to me; if I discover you horking these concepts the way you horked Quentin's HATEFUL EIGHT script, you'll be hearing from my attorneys at the law offices of John, Jacob, Jingleheimer, and Schmidt.)
An English long-distance truck driver (Nick Frost) is forced to share his cab with a slimy efficiency expert (Nick Kroll) from the American corporation he delivers for. They must, however, work together when their route crosses paths with the dangerous "Burma-Shave Killer" and one of his escaped targets (Jaime Winstone).
The Shaggs were easily the most unconventional pop act of the late '60's, three sisters practically forced into making music by their spiritually-motivated father. As such, under the vision of Argento, their story is bifurcated into an initially straightforward account of the drama behind their sole album, followed by a wild speculative alternate history about the worldwide success that had been dreamed of in their inception, including an explosive appearance on Italian television featuring cameos by Ellen Page and Argento herself as popular European chanteuses Rita Pavone and Mina. In exchange for financing this project, Argento agreed to come out of acting retirement to appear in...
When NSA Agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) is murdered under impenetrable means, Agent Darius Stone (Ice Cube) is promoted to his position, and his first order of business is to locate the falsely-believed-dead Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) and his ally KGB agent Yelena (Asia Argento) to investigate this mystery. Once found, they are thrust into a deep penetration mission in Turkey involving bankrupted Greek industrialists, Armenian militants, and the Arab Spring, with a much-too-genial street bootlegger (Jason Mantzoukas) the apparent link to the impending carnage.
Elizabeth Enright's beloved series of books about the four precocious Melendy children in pre-World War II New York City begins with the siblings agreeing to pool their otherwise small allowances so that once a week, one of the four can go off to have a unique Saturday afternoon to remember. And as the eldest seeks to present herself as more adult, the middle two explore high art, and the youngest discovers how to make the large-looming city smaller and more navigable, they all bond in what their singular explorations have brought to their collective growth.
In 1981, Sonny Gibson wrote a purported autobiography called MAFIA KINGPIN, casting himself as a connected hitman, drug-smuggler, and well-paid male prostitute who turned his life around in prison. But years later, a court case proved he and his failed pop-star/co-author/girlfriend Reparata Mazzola were none of those things, just small-time con artists. But for decades, they continued to ply this fake legacy into film projects and business deals that swindled hundreds. Johnson hilariously yet sincerely contrasts the real-life career of Gibson and Mazzola to the outrageous fantasy of big time crimes they documented in their fictionalized book, to illustrate how and why such a wild tale could be conceived by them, and sold to others.
After decades of false starts and being considered near-unfilmable, Erica Jong's influential novel finally reaches the screen. Isadora Wing (Alison Brie) is a working published poet in the '70's feeling herself overwhelmed by an unsatisfying marriage, lack of respect from her peers, troubling reactions from readers of her work, and her constant conflicted sexual desires, exemplified in her obsession with finding the mythical "zipless fuck," the perfect unburdened encounter with a stranger. And on a globetrotting voyage for academic and personal purposes, she learns even more complicated details about the new sexual freedom and her place within it.
In the early '60's, the two biggest stars working for Paramount under canny producer Hal B. Wallis (Bill Murray) were Elvis Presley (Channing Tatum) and Jerry Lewis (Josh Fadem). When studio president Barney Balaban (Bob Balaban, playing his own father) suggests teaming them up for a movie, everyone agrees this is a natural pairing. So why did the movie never get made? This comedic mystery suggests that shady dealings by the infamous Colonel Tom Parker (Toby Jones) and some military secrets inadvertently picked up in Germany during Elvis' mandatory Army service, not to mention the wild offscreen antics of both stars, may hold the keys to the Greatest Teaming Never Told.
Race relations and cinematic sacred cows are mercilessly satirized as a media production student (John Boyega) at a Southern college, irritated when his objections to prolonged hagiography of BIRTH OF A NATION are blown off by his pompous professor (Glenn Howerton), decides to get even by writing and directing a savage mock "making-of" the film as his final project for the class. But when he challenges himself to use the same technological limitations as would have been in place at the dawn of feature filmmaking, the ambitious plan begins to overwhelm him, as he himself runs afoul of campus p.c. enforcers uncomfortable with his editorial decisions, and the stress causes him to repeatedly have hallucinations of D.W. Griffith himself (Tim Roth) taunting him. He soon fears that he may not be able to make his artistic statement without also becoming memorialized in infamy.
The dense and confounding novel by NAME OF THE ROSE author Umberto Eco is adapted by the director responsible for two mind-scrambling fantasies of his own. Three men working for a small publishing house amuse themselves by trying to link every popular conspiracy theory, shadow organization, and other assorted urban legends into one master conspiracy. Gradually, however, they begin to believe in their own connections, and other mysterious groups start coming out of the shadows who believe in the unification even more so than them, and demand they deliver answers that the three did not plan for when they first started coming up with "The Plan."
In early 20th century New York, an immigrant runaway (Saoirse Ronan) is torn between keeping a dead-end seamstress job and joining the rising Suffragette movement. But after a series of brutal murders of women remain unsolved by a less-than-aggressive police, and a deadly fire kills hundreds at her factory but the rich proprietors elude justice, she is drawn into a secret all-female vigilante society named for the Biblical warrior judge, who intends to punish all those who are profiting from the abuse of women. As their notoriety spreads, the forces that want to end them come closing in, including that uncaptured serial killer. The surprising conclusion to the "Right Side of History/Wrong Side of an Asskicking" trilogy also stars Colleen Camp, Carol Lynley, Sybill Danning, and Emily Lloyd as Nellie Bly.
That's enough fantasy film foolishness for this entry. Intermission time.
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