More Early Oscar Predix/Le Havre Goes Weinstein/Rudderless/AND ANOTHER COEN MUSICAL!

Poster for Simon Curtis' Telluride possible: "My Week with Marilyn"

Ioncinema is hinting this morning that The Weinstein Company will be picking up "Le Havre."  It was a critically and publicly popular film at Cannes last month and a film that I think has a better than average chance of being at this year's Telluride Film Festival.

Also, The Playlist is reporting that Christian Bale and Darren Aronofsky may be getting together for Aronofsky's "Noah" project.  http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/christian_bale_in_talks_to_star_in_darren_aronofskys_noah/

Film Misery has its first stab at Oscar predictions up this morning.  You can find those here:
http://www.filmmisery.com/?p=7500
On the list there are these TFF#38 possibles: "The Descendants," "The Iron Lady," "The Ides of March," "We Need to Talk About Kevin," and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy."  Other TFF #38 "maybes" on his list of other possible Best Picture nominations would be: "Drive," "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," "The Artist," "Moneyball," "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," (John Madden's new film, Fox Searchlight is involved) "Young Adult," "My Week with Marilyn," and "Carnage."

I also discovered that Scott Feinberg had his first attempt up a couple of weeks ago.  You can find that here:
http://scottfeinberg.com/2011projections1
Added films from the Feinberg list of Telluride interest that are not included in Film Misery's list: "Coriolanus" and"The Wettest County in the World."

And now for something completely different (and I feel OK about including this in the blog because it is such a Telluride Film Festival story)...In November 2009 I received an email from someone who actually read this blog in the run-up to TFF#36.  He said he enjoyed it and was an aspiring screenwriter, had some things working, etc. etc.  His name: Casey Twenter.  Would I want to read the script he was currently working on?  Me...I said sure.  Entitled "Rudderless," I read it, liked it and we struck up an email, twitter, facebook friendship.  Got to meet Casey last summer in Kansas City (during the National Speech Tournament).  We had lunch and a really pleasant discussion about film, and the background about how "Rudderless" had come to be up to that point.

Back in 2009, Casey (and his writing partner Jeff Robison) were looking for financing to independently produce the film.  Over the last year and a half, that effort has ebbed and flowed and taken on a number of different forms.  Now, it looks increasingly like the film will get made and not just out of Casey and Jeff's pockets and fund raising.  Some big, BIG names are already on board and there are other names in the mix.  Some of them I can talk about, some not.

The biggest reveal that I am allowed to pass on is that veteran actor/writer/director and Oscar nominee (for Fargo..which fits right in with this week's Coen Brothers musical rant that I've been on) William H. Macy has signed on to direct and produce.  You read that right.  WILLIAM H. MACY!

There are other Oscar nominee/winner types in talks for the male lead and the main female supporting character that I can't get into...yet. But it is all terribly exciting.  As things progress I'll pass it on when I can.

My hope is that "Rudderless" gets made, is great and in a Kharmic full circle ends up at Telluride's 39th Film Festival next year.

You can find the "Rudderless" IMDB page here:   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798243/
The "Rudderless" facebook page is here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Rudderless-The-Movie/194390831736

Again, as more information becomes available, I'll pass it along in this space.

Now...as you're almost certainly aware, we've had hints the last few days that the Coen Brothers next film might be a musical, which necessarily has caused me to speculate that if it were successful that we should go back and re-imagine their body of work in that light.  I've already made some suggestions for "Raising Arizona:The Musical" and "Fargo:The Musical. 

And now...the next Coen Brothers musical..."O Brother, Where Art Thou?" which is already got some music that you'll just have to include like: "Down to the River to Pray," and "Man of Constant Sorrow."  But because it'll be a big Broadway style musical it will have to include new musical numbers such as: "I'm with you Fellas," "Gopher, Everett?," "I'm a Dapper Dan Man," "Dumber than a Bag of Hammers," and "Damn, We're in a Tight Spot."

More Coen's musicals to come...