Is Amazon Studios the next Netflix? Not quite, but it’s not for lack of trying and some have already called them a Hollywood threat. Lots of stuff is cooking over there: the John Goodman-starring political comedy “Alpha House,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Barbarella;” even the “Zombieland” series may potentially land there. “World War Z” director Marc Forster’s “Hand Of God,” starring Ron Perlman, is also nearing an official pilot green light.
One more joins the fray, this one from “Barcelona” and “The Last Days Of Disco” filmmaker Whit Stillman. Titled “Cosmopolitan” (Stillman’s first film was “Metropolitan,” for those keeping score), Stillman will write, direct and executive produce, and the show will chronicle the loves and adventures of a group of young expatriates in Paris (Stillman spent plenty of time there during his “in the wilderness” period after going more than ten years between films; ‘Disco’ in 1998 and “Damsels in Distress” in 2011). It was also recently announced that Stillman would be working on a Jane Austen-inspired book titled, “Love & Friendship: An Adaptation of Jane Austen’s Unfinished Novella Concerning the Beautiful Lady Susan Vernon, Her Loves and Friendships, and the Strange Antagonism of the DeCourcy Family.”
Presumably this is a kind of first run at the similar Jane Austen-inspired movie that Stillman was kicking around last year? Considering the same titles, basically yes. So what’s up with that movie? We asked on Twitter and Stillman responded with, “all in due time…” (though admittedly, that tweets seems to have been deleted). It wouldn’t be the first time Stillman wrote a novel of his own work, though the order would be in reverse. After “The Last Days Of Disco” in 1998, Stillman released a novel (but not novelization form) of the movie in 2000 called, “The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards.”
Also over at Amazon Studios “Invasion” creator Shaun Cassidy is making “Hysteria,” about a doctor who travels to her hometown of Houston to investigate an epidemic among high school girls that may be spreading through technology. That one doesn’t sound quite like our cup of tea but hey, good news, we may not have to wait 10 plus years for something else from Whit Stillman. Rejoice already. [Deadline]