‘The Road’ May Detour Towards 2009
Post-production delays may torpedo The Road’s chances of opening in 2008. The film, starring Viggo Mortensen and based on Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed novel, was originally scheduled for a November 14, but has been slipped to December and if the work is not completed may miss the year entirely.
The story, directed by John Hillcoat, features Mortensen as a father taking his son across a post-apocalyptic American landscape. The novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. In June, Entertainment Weekly named The Road the best book, fiction or non-fiction, of the past 25 years.
As noted in The Hollywood Reporter, given that last year’s No Country for Old Men, based on a another McCarthy novel, took the Best Picture at the Academy Awards and Mortensen, now on screen in Apaloosa, received an acting nomination for Eastern Promises, The Weinstein Company had pinned similar hopes for this feature.
Harvey Weinstein will determine the current status of post-production and his execs will make a final decision today. Meantime, hedging his bets, Weinstein has started the publicity machine for December’s The Reader, which may take pressure off The Road.
Newcomer Brad Ingelsby has been hired by Warner Bros. to adapt WildStorm’s Sleeper into a feature film. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ short-lived sf/crime comic lasted two 12-part maxiseries and was somewhat tied to the greater WildStorm continuity. In fact, the first maxiseries ended and spun events into the Coup D’Etat crossover event.
Marvel has increased its original 
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There isn’t even an airdate as yet, but Fox’s Dollhouse, due in January, has stirred up some controversy. Fans are worried because Fox has a reputation for being ham-fisted with genre programming and is as likely to cancel a show as it is to support it. Creator Joss Whedon has defended the current regime at Fox and is comfortable with them although he did stop production for two weeks to retool the storylines. At present the series has a mere eight episode order, short even for a midseason replacement.
We adore Hard Case Crime and their line of hardboiled crime and mystery tales from new and famous authors. Founder Charles Ardai just announced that he will publish, for the first time ever, a Lester Dent novel, Honey in his Mouth. The creator of Doc Savage had written the story intended for the Gold Medal line of books that are a direct ancestor to Hard Case.
David Fincher, while promoting his next feature, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, told reporters that the film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama was likely dead. Despite the most recent draft of a script being delivered in April, financing proved difficult for the classic novel.
French Milk
