Movies
“Bubba Ho-Tep” Author’s ‘Christmas with the Dead’ Becomes a Feature!
Joe R. Lansdale, prolific author of such notable stories as the “Hap and Leonard” series of novels, “The Bottom’s” and the unforgettable “Bubba Ho-Tep,” the first of his works to be made into a movie, is about to bring his very own zombies to the big screen! Lansdale’s latest short story, to be released in early 2011, is ready to be made into a movie: Christmas with the Dead. The author has previous undead entries with “Dead in the West”, “On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks,” and most recently “Deadman’s Road,” as well as an entry in BOOM!’s comic, “Zombie Tales”. Here’s the plot crunch: “It was a foolish thing to do, and Calvin had not bothered with it the past two years, not since the death of his wife and child. But this year he decided quite suddenly, that tomorrow was Christmas Eve. And zombies be damned, the lights and decorations are going up…” More info inside!
In addition to Lansdale, who will act as executive producer, already signed on to the project are Damian Maffei (Closed for the Season) as the lead, Brian James Fitzpatrick (Throwaway) who is set to direct, and Marcus Koch (Sweatshop, 100 Tears) with Oddtopsy F/X who is scheduled to create the special effects for the movie.
Shooting is scheduled to begin this June in Nacogdoches, Texas, where Lansdale has lived with his wife for the past thirty years. In a nod to Joe’s affiliation as writer-in-residence at the Stephen F. Austin University, Lansdale will be employing the use of many of the students, as well as the use of some of the school’s state of the art equipment. Joe sees this association with the university as an opportunity to give the students a hands-on film-making experience.
“Based on my short story of the same name, Christmas with the Dead is now in pre-production,” said Lansdale. “I’m excited about it moving forward and very fortunate to have some fine people at the helm. I’m looking forward to begin filming this summer.”
Fitzpatrick is thrilled to be part of the project. “It’s all coming together very quickly – taking on a life of its own – which I think is what happens with strong projects where everyone has the same vision; the same passion. And a Lansdale zombie movie is pretty damn strong.”
As for the merry movie and the plight of it’s hero: “It was a foolish thing to do, and Calvin had not bothered with it the past two years, not since the death of his wife and child. But this year he decided quite suddenly, that tomorrow was Christmas Eve. And zombies be damned, the lights and decorations are going up…”
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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