More on "Good Omens" the Movie and Coraline

In a recent e-mail exchange I had with Neil Gaiman he confirmed that Terry Gilliam is the director for the adapation of Good Omens to the screen. On a side note, Gaiman has been working on Coraline and will be doing a signing of the book in the Barnes and Noble in Union Square, NYC on Thursday the 11th. That's today. Update: 07/11 13:15 GMT by CT : I just wanted to say 'Curse Your Terry Gilliam'! Ever since I read Good Omens, I wished I was a film director just so I could direct that book. I guess Terry will do a good job too ;)

Comments

The right director confirmed!

[Saint Fnordius]

Choosing Terry Gilliam to do Good Omens is perfect. His style and dark humour complement Pratchett and Gaiman's wierd little epic. Although Terry Gilliam is American, he is one of the few directors I'd trust to do this with the right British touch (not too much, but not too little as well).

Now we can hope for an intelligent comedy that doesn't resort to butt (fart) jokes.

Re:The right director confirmed!

[Angry Toad]

There's a great deal of information on the Good Omens movie at a Terry Gilliam fansite called Dreams. Apparently they're actually playing down the comedic aspects of the book. This seems like kind of a smart idea to me - the book done as a faux-serious metaphysical drama, combined with Gilliam's warped worldmaking talents, could really work. A straight-up adaption of the book's (mostly conceptual, descriptive) jokes might fall flat...

But what about the footnotes?

[reddfoxx]

If you have actually read this book you would know that the footnotes are often the best and funniest parts of a all around good tale about the biblical apocalypse. How will any director mention the different misprint versions of the bible that the angel and sonetimes bookstore owner has collected?

I'm actually very interested to see if this thing pans out. I just hope that the history of the british monetary system actually makes it into the movie

Re:But what about the footnotes?

[Anonymous Coward]

The BBC films of the Hitchhiker had an very nice

idea to include the funny but longish

descriptions by adding short animated sequences

in the form of an animated description.

(Remember the human proving there is no god?)

I think this could perhaps done here, too.

Eat Fud

[invid]

Terry Gilliam is one of the most brilliant directors out there (and he is definitely "out there"). I consider Brazil to be one of the best films of all time. Terry is very willing to be dark. In fact, over the past 2 decades it seems that he's been trying to distance himself from his Monty Python past. None of his recent films can be considered comedies. The last film with any substantial comedic element was The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which was his last pythonesque film.

It will be great to see Terry doing a dark comedy again.

PS, is anyone else out there upset that his plan to do The Watchmen fell through? That would have been a fantastic film!

Re:Eat Fud

[Anonymous Coward]

PS, is anyone else out there upset that his plan to do The Watchmen fell through? That would have been a fantastic film!

Not me. I love Watchmen, but doing it as anything but a comic book (excuse me, "graphic novel") misses large chunks of the point.

Re:Eat Fud

[mberman]

over the past 2 decades it seems that he's been trying to distance himself from his Monty Python past. None of his recent films can be considered comedies.

Umm, what? Two decades ago would be 1982. In that year, he wrote some of the sketches Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl and the year after, he directed Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Doesn't sound too distant to me. But, let's give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant "18 years" when you said "two decades". In the last 18 years, he's done Brazil, Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. You mentioned Munchausen already, but, really, if you didn't think all the rest (with the exception of Fisher King) where comedies, well, then, you didn't understand them. They may not be as outright silly as Python, but they're still comedies, and with Twelve Monkeys, it even approaches Pythonesque silliness in some places. Saying Brazil isn't a comedy is like saying Fight Club isn't a comedy. If you didn't think it was funny, you didn't get it...

Re:Eat Fud

[dswensen]

PS, is anyone else out there upset that his plan to do The Watchmen fell through? That would have been a fantastic film!

No, because I feel the great strength of Watchmen is in how perfectly suited it is to its medium. I think Watchmen is a damn near perfect example of what a graphic novel ought to be. And I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that most of what I love about Watchmen would not survive the transition to film. Hollywood has never hesitated to take a chainsaw to a good story.

I seriously hope Watchmen never becomes a movie.

Problem is...

[IxnayOnTheIxnay]

...the unread masses will poo-poo it as a Dogma ripoff, and it will unfortunately tank.

Coraline

[KFury]

I had the good fortune to go to Gaiman's reading of Coraline last week in Berkeley (the day the book was released, he did a full 3-hour reading of the text to a packed cathedral of 800 people).

Before he began, he confirmed that Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, Monkeybone), who was in attendance, would be directing the movie version of Coraline, and that Michelle Pfeiffer was signed on to play the Mother/Other Mother roles.

It's a great story, and is sort of a shift for Gaiman, targeting a broader aged audience, while remaining dark but more polished (no footnotes, and a more constant narrative tone). The reading was fabulous, and I could totally visualize the movie version.

A friend of mine did a more thorough write-up of the reading for those interseted.

Re:Novel and Parrot by Terry Gilliam

[undercanopy]

think that it was a younger version of her, unaware of the dangers of the man sitting next to her, rather than her come back from the future to try and set things right
No, they weren't trying to set things right. They knew that they couldn't alter the course of events because they happened. They wanted to get their hands on a sample of the pure virus/bacteria/whatever and be able to create a cure. They didn't want him to try and change things because they knew he couldn't. That's what was going to happen because it already had.