Zack Snyder to Direct Another ‘Illustrated’ Classic
Posted by Rob Hunter (rob@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 29, 2007
A terrible movie based on a classic story collection is getting the big-budget remake treatment as Zack Snyder has signed on to direct a new film of Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man.
The original 1969 film stars Rod Steiger as an angry, burly, and crazy small-town sheriff who hates black- no, wait… sorry, wrong movie. Steiger stars as an angry, burly, crazy man covered in tattoos that swirl across his skin, telling stories of fate and the future. The character and his quest for the mysterious woman who inked him is the framing device surrounding three stories from Bradbury’s superior 1951 collection. The stories adapted for the original film succeed to varying degrees, but would have been better suited for The Twilight Zone, as they share too little thematically.
Variety is reporting that the new Warner Bros. production stems from the recently inked first-look deal Zack and Deborah Snyder (wife/producing partner) and their production company, Cruel and Unusual Films, signed after the blockbuster success of the testosterone-fueled 300. That film is based on the Frank Miller graphic novel. Watchmen screenwriter Alex Tse is adapting the collection, but there has been no word yet as to which or how many of the book’s eighteen stories will be included.
Snyder is currently in pre-production on the already fanboy-despised Watchmen, which is based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Alan Moore. Also on Snyder’s plate is an adaption of Vaughn and Mark Bode’s Cobalt 60, a cult-comic from the 60’s revived briefly in the 80’s in the pages of Epic Illustrated. Officially unannounced, but common knowledge in the halls of Warner Bros. is the news that Snyder has also signed to direct a big-screen version of the one-panel, comic classic, Family Circus.
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