Movies
Darren Aronofsky Evokes Cronenberg for ‘Machine Man’
Darren Aronofsky could be the next Steven Spielberg or James Cameron if he continues down this insane path of anti-Hollywood filmmaking. Only someone of his caliber can take something new and unique, and break it through the walls of Hollywood that is insistent on remaking films and sticking to their franchise guns. With his Oscar-worthy Black Swan transforming theaters this coming December, instead of taking the reigns on Superman, Aronofsky has instead opted to take the David Cronenberg route with Machine Man. Can I get a holy f*ck?
Darren Aronofsky is set to direct amped-up thriller “Machine Man'” for Mandalay Pictures, based on Max Barry’s serialized online story and upcoming tome.
In the pop thriller, a gadget geek and engineer working at a forward-thinking tech firm decides to systematically replace his weaker fleshy parts with high-end titanium performance upgrades of his own design. But he isn’t the only one with plans for his superior parts.
Mark Heyman is penning the adapted screenplay, collaborating with Aronofsky and Mandalay. Project reteams Heyman and Aronofsky, who worked on “Black Swan.”
Cathy Schulman will produce “Machine Man” for Mandalay. Barry will exec produce.
Mandalay secured the rights to Barry’s partial manuscript in November 2009. As part of an ongoing interactive literary experiment, Barry’s story is being crafted and published one page per day in real time as an online serial. It will be published as a novel by Vintage Books in Spring 2011.
Aronofsky is currently prepping for the release of “Black Swan,” which Fox Searchlight opens Dec. 5. He was last in theaters with the critically acclaimed “The Wrestler.”
Described as “Ted meets ET,” David Mikalson’s raunchy comedy Goblin is being brought to life over at A24, and Will Forte (“The Four Seasons”) is now in talks to star.
Deadline first reported the news this afternoon.
Kenneth Branagh has been cast to voice the titular Goblin in the upcoming A24 movie, with the character said to be “green-colored” as well as “anatomically correct.”
Skyler Gisondo (Superman) is reportedly playing the Goblin’s human best friend.
The mysterious project sounds a bit like films including A Gnome Named Gnorm and more recently, Frankie Freako, though it’s important to note that it’s not billed as a horror movie.
Deadline details, “After [Mikalson] hatched the idea to make an outrageous buddy comedy about a goblin, using a practical puppet and operating outside the Hollywood system, his script quickly got him a rep team. While others might have eyed the raunchy comedy as a writing sample or planned to wait to see the micro-budget version Mikalson has been directing in Kentucky, A24 jumped all over it. The hot indie essentially has agreed to finance a full feature.”
“There was a lot of interest, but A24 came with what Mikalson really wanted, after spending all his money crafting the puppet title character: they acquired the movie and agreed to let him make it with a significantly increased budget than what he had left after creating the anatomically correct title character,” Deadline’s report goes on to explain.
What does the titular Goblin actually look like? Well, a cake that Mikalson had whipped up for his reps might give us our first look at what to expect. Deadline explains the photo you’ll see down below, “Take a look at the cake he commissioned with Marc Gravelle at Cake Art in West Hollywood, to present to his reps as thanks for making his dream come true.”
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