It’s been a couple of years since Sam Mendes directed “Spectre,” and he’s been kicking the tires on a number of directing gigs, without anything gaining enough momentum to get in front of cameras. He’s signed up at Disney for the live-action “James And The Giant Peach,” and presumably the adaptation of “Beautiful Ruins” remains a possibility. There was “The Voyeur’s Motel,” but that project fell apart after questions were raised about the Gay Talese‘s source material, not to mention news of a competing documentary about the same subject matter. However, a new movie is on Mendes’ horizon.
The filmmaker is in early talks to helm the graphic novel adaptation “My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.” Based on the work of Emil Ferris, the story follows a ten year-old girl who tries to solve a murder. Here’s the book synopsis:
Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late ’60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster magazines iconography. Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold. When Karen’s investigation takes us back to Anka’s life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge.
The project is set up at Sony, and is in early stages, with no screenwriter attached. But it does sound very promising, with plenty of opportunity for Mendes to really go for broke visually. One to keep an eye on for sure. [Deadline]