Caffeinated Clint
Seems whenever a big project is announced, or near the announced stage, Jude Law’s name comes up as a potential star. William Friedkin tells me Jude Law would be up for the lead in his next film "Serpentine", should Law want a look-in, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Friedkin fancies him as a young Hackman for the mooted "French Connection" sequel that he’s in talks to do. A scooper for Aint it Cool today mentions that Law is locked into starring in the adaptation of Glen David Gold’s ‘Carter Beats the Devil’, alongside one of the mutants from "X-Men".
An informant of mine at Miramax tells me that the adaptation of Glen David Gold’s ‘Carter Beats the Devil’ (by the author himself- a new trend as seen with David Benioff’s 25th Hour) has now been greenlit by Weinstein himself. The company is saving money on the project as the scale is colossal. Speaking of colossal, X2’s Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) is tipped for a role slightly larger than that in Singer’s epic, as the famous magician Charles Carter’s brother’s boyfriend… confused? Jude Law is in talks to take the lead role as Carter -not much to talk about as from the sound of things, this will be the role to cement his career. There has been no talk of who is to direct yet, but Wes Anderson is a massive fan of the novel and after he’s wrapped his current project this would be ideal- do we smell a rewrite in the air from the quirky genius?
Doesn’t actually help people who are’nt familiar with the story to work out what it’s about does it? so here’s the blurb from amazon.
In Carter Beats the Devil, Glen David Gold subjects the past to the same wondrous transformations as the rabbit in a skilled illusionist’s hat. Gold’s debut novel opens with real-life magician Charles Carter executing a particularly grisly trick, using President Warren G. Harding as a volunteer. Shortly afterwards, Harding dies mysteriously in his San Francisco hotel room, and Carter is forced to flee the country. Or does he? It’s only the first of many misdirections in a magical performance by Gold. In the course of subsequent pages, Carter finds himself pursued by the most hapless of FBI agents; falls in love with a beautiful, outspoken blind woman; and confronts an old nemesis bent on destroying him. Throw in countless stunning (and historically accurate) illusions, some beautifully rendered period detail, and historical figures like young inventor Philo T. Farnsworth and self-made millionaire Francis "Borax" Smith, and you have old-fashioned entertainment executed with a decidedly modern sensibility.
Gold has written for movies and TV, so it’s no surprise that he delivers snappy, fast-paced dialogue and action scenes as expertly scripted as anything that’s come out of Hollywood in years. Carter Beats the Devil has a mustachioed villain, chase scenes, a lion, miraculous escapes, even pirates, for God’s sake. Yet none of this is as broadly drawn as it might sound: Gold’s characters are driven by childhood sorrows and disappointments in love, just like the rest of us, and they’re limned in clever, quicksilver prose. By turns suspenseful, moving, and magical, this is the historical novel to give to anyone who complains that contemporary fiction has lost the ability to both move and entertain. –Mary Park
