Getting something made these days that isn’t a blockbuster isn’t easy, and so many directors keep a few irons in the fire at any one time, hoping one of them will gain enough momentum, support and financing to enter production. And Derek Cianfrance has certainly been piling up his plate lately, adding “The Light Between Oceans” and the ESPN movie “Those Guys Have All The Fun” to his roster of possible projects. And now another feature has entered the mix, while a long-developing TV project exits.
Speaking on the Jeff Goldsmith podcast, Cianfrance revealed, “I’m going to write a movie with [‘Place Beyond The Pines‘ co-writer] Darius [Marder] called ‘A Cotton Candy Autopsy,’ ” adding that “I don’t know how to describe it, except that it’ll be a crazy movie … Ben Mendelsohn will be in that one.” And unless there are two separate things with his unique title, it would appear it’s an adaptation of a 1990s DC Comic series published through their since-shuttered imprint, Piranha Press.
Penned by Dave Louapre and Dan Sweetman, the comic chronicled ” ‘raging drunk’ clowns who steal cars, kidnap women and are on the run,” with the blog Thus Spake Mighty Wha-Keem revealing that in ‘Autopsy,’ “a clown at a circus which burns down as the story opens, sets out with his friends Bingo, Foo Foo, Joey Punchinello and Addy the Freaklady on a road trip adventure that stands a good chance of changing your views on clowns forever.” In short, this ain’t Bozo.
No word yet on where it fall on Cianfrance’s schedule, but one project you can count out is “Muscle,” the show he was working on at HBO” that has now been dropped. It was an adaptation of Sam Fussell‘s memoir that tells the story of an Oxford graduate who moves to New York City, and in order to protect himself, spends four years fully consumed in the world of bodybuilding. No word yet if he’ll try and take it elsewhere. [via The Film Stage]