Caffeinated Clint
Scorsese doing film version of children’s book
After he wins the Oscar next week for Best Film (we hope, anyway), Martin Scorsese (“The Departed”) will turn his attention to a film version of the bestselling Brian Selznick children’s novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”.
John Logan (“The Aviator”) is adapting the screenplay, which concerns a 12-year-old orphan who lives in the walls of a Paris train station in 1930 and a mystery involving the boy, his late father and a robot.
Scorsese recently inked a lucrative first-look deal with Paramount. Under the terms of the pact, Par has the right to own half of any project Scorsese directs or produces elsewhere.
“Hugo Cabret” joins several projects on Scorsese’s to-do list.
According to Variety, while the director hasn’t declared his next film, helming projects on his front burner include “Silence,” the Initial-produced WB adaptation of the Shusaku Endo novel about two 17th century Jesuit priests who witness the hardships of spreading Christianity in Japan. (Project predates the first-look deal with Par.)
A sequel to “The Departed” is being mulled based on an idea by scripter William Monahan. Both Scorsese and King head into the weekend in contention for Oscars for “Departed.”
At Paramount, Scorsese is developing with an eye to direct the bigscreen adaptation of Eric Jager’s historical tome “Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal and Trial by Combat in Medieval France.” Kevin Misher’s Par-based Misher Films is producing.
