Sam Mendes

[MacGuffin]

Sam Mendes, Focus in 2-year pact
First-look deal includes two potential projects
Source: Variety

Focus Features has made a two-year first-look deal with Sam Mendes and Neal Street Prods., the company the helmer partners in with Pippa Harris and Caro Newling.

Deal includes the acquisition of two projects that could be potential directing vehicles for Mendes.

Mendes, Harris and Newling are producing "Butcher's Crossing," an epic adventure based on the 1960 revisionist Western novel by John Williams.

Set in 1870s America, the pic focuses on a man who forsakes his Harvard education to move to the small Kansas town of Butcher's Crossing. There, he joins the hunt for one of the last great buffalo herds.

Polsky Films' Gabe and Alan Polsky are producing with NSP.

Focus will also develop "Middlemarch," an adaptation of the George Eliot novel about changing fortunes in a provincial English community in the early 1830s. A script is in by Andrew Davies.

Mendes has not committed to his next film as a director. He formed Neal Street with Harris and Newling in 2003; the shingle most recently produced "Away We Go," Mendes' first film for Focus.

Neal Street's theater productions include "Shrek the Musical" and "Mary Stuart," and Neal Street Theatricals is participating in a trans-Atlantic producing partnership called the Bridge Project. As part of that initiative, Mendes directed a double bill of "The Winter's Tale" and "The Cherry Orchard" at BAM, which has since moved to the Old Vic.

"The range of Sam's interests and skills as a filmmaker is limitless, and he is a magnet for top talent in front of and behind the camera," said Focus CEO James Schamus.

[MacGuffin]

Focus lands 'Netherland'
Mendes teams with Winfrey on film
Source: Variety

Focus Features has teamed with Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Prods. and Sam Mendes' Neal Street Prods. to mount a feature adaptation of "Netherland," the Joseph O'Neill novel that Harpo optioned last year when it was published.

Christopher Hampton will write the script for a film that Mendes is eyeing as a potential directing vehicle.

Mendes and his Neal Street partner Pippa Harris will produce with Harpo's Winfrey and Kate Forte. Neal Street has a first-look deal with Focus.

"Netherland" won O'Neill the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The novel is set in New York City, where a lonely Dutch expatriate becomes drawn to the sport of cricket and forms an unlikely bond to immigrant culture.

Hampton previously worked with Focus Features on "Atonement," earning an Oscar nomination for his script.

"We're so glad to have Christopher join our creative partnership with Harpo and Neal Street," Focus Features CEO James Schamus said. "This project's emotional power has resonated with us all."

[MacGuffin]

'The Road' scribe destined for 'Crossing'
Joe Penhall to adapt John Williams' Western novel for Focus
Source: Hollwyood Reporter

Joe Penhall is following the road to "Butcher's Crossing."

The screenwriter who adapted Cormac McCarthy's novel "The Road" has been hired to adapt John Williams' 1960 Western novel for Focus Features. The project is part of a two-year, first-look deal that Focus cut with Sam Mendes, who might direct.

Set during the 1870s, the adventure tale centers on a man who drops out of Harvard and heads west to the small Kansas town of the title. There, he joins the search for a great buffalo herd.

Mendes and his Neal Street Prods. partners Pippa Harris and Caro Newling are producing with Polsky Films' Gabe and Alan Polsky.

Penhall, repped by Endeavor and the Curtis Brown Group in the U.K., also is working on the Fox 2000 adaptation "Deep Water" and an adaptation of his own play, "Landscape With Weapons," for "Road" director John Hillcoat.

He also wrote the screenplays for "Some Voices" and "Enduring Love."

[MacGuffin]

Sam Mendes Off Preacher
Source: ComingSoon

As part of their latest "Seven Days With" series, Collider spoke with producer Neal Moritz, the man behind the "XXX" and "Fast and Furious" franchises and more, but also the producer behind the long-gestating adaptation of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Vertigo comic series Preacher. They discovered that director Sam Mendes is off the project, having gotten the gig to direct the 23rd "James Bond," but Moritz is trying to keep the forward motion going on the project by talking to new directors. The film's screenwriter John August is one of the filmmakers interested in directing the movie, which is intended as the first part of a series.

The Collider story also mentions that Moritz has had a meeting with a possible director for The Boys, the movie based on the Garth Ennis/Darick Robertson comic book we previously reported on here. Previously, Collider got the scoop that Ryan Reynolds will star in Moritz's other project mentioned in that piece, the adaptation of the Dark Horse comic R.I.P.D..

[Stefen]

Sam Mendes has probably given up on life. After losing one of the classiest pieces of ass in the world, how could you not!

[Pubrick]

Sam Mendes has probably given up on life. After losing one of the classiest pieces of ass in the world, how could you not!

not even, if anything his involvement in the next bond film signals a renewed interest in life on many fronts.

firstly, he will renew his interestin in being relevant.. his film will be guarranteed to be talked about cos someone will actually see it. he also is showing an interest in money, which he would'nt need if he gave up on life, no quite the opposite, he wants MORE out of life therefore he needs more money to satisfy his new desires. and finally the greatest sign to be gleaned from his involvement in the bond franchise is a clear and definite interest in CHICKS.. you cannot make a bond film without getitng your filthy hands all over a bond girl.

he is a cunning bastard.

[Derek]

Apparently in talks to direct Wizard of Oz prequel with RDJ starring as the Wizard.


http://chud.com/articles/articles/23442/1/ROBERT-DOWNEY-JR-WILL-BE-THE-WIZARD-OF-OZ/Page1.html

[Alexandro]

downey is turning into johnny depp.

[Pas]

Not that bad yet, but definitely going there. Pretty sad.

[MacGuffin]

Sam Mendes Sweet On 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory' And Focus Feature 'On Chesil Beach' With Carey Mulligan
By MIKE FLEMING; Deadline Hollywood

EXCLUSIVE: With James Bond postponed because of MGM's woes, Sam Mendes has firmed the next two projects he intends to direct.  Following a successful reading of the first act of the stage musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in New York last week, Mendes has committed himself to direct the musical production that will shoot for a holiday 2011 premiere in London. A move to Broadway will follow.

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman will continue writing songs and David Greig will complete the book and a designer is being hired to construct the elaborate chocolate factory. While that goes on, Mendes will squeeze in a feature. I'm told he plans to direct On Chesil Beach, and that he is having discussions with Carey Mulligan to play the female lead in the Focus Features adaptation of the Ian McEwan novella. The author is scripting the drama, which takes place in the UK in 1963 and revolves around two repressed virgins in their early twenties whose attempt to consummate ends badly. Their futile attempt at lovemaking leads to doubt and recriminations. Mendes and Pippa Harris are producing.

Mendes is bullish enough that the film will happen that he has informed Disney he should no longer be considered to direct The Great and Powerful Oz. But Mendes remains committed to the Bond film and intends to direct it once the MGM ownership situation gets sorted out.

Mendes' commitment to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a boost for one of the signature projects for the Warner Bros stage arm Warner Theatricals. I'd always heard that part of the studio's motivation for the 2005 film remake was to curry favor with the estate of Roald Dahl and make the stage musical possible. Even though Dahl adapted his book into the 1971 film Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, he didn't care for the original. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is being produced by Mendes and his Neal Street Productions cohort Caro Newling, along with Kevin McCormick. Caro and Mendes formerly ran Donmar Warehouse and their recent stage productions include Red, which is nominated for 7 Tony Awards and has won the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Best Play.

[Pubrick]

haha why is there only a passing mention to the fucking burton travesty released only FIVE fucking years ago???

is everyone pretending it didn't happen so mendes doesn't feel like a complete FOOL for wanting to make another version?

Move over Guillermo Del Toro, there's a new career-suicide in town.

[Pas]

Charlie and the chocolate factory? Are they fucking kidding?

Mendes is always supposed to do stuff he never does though, so it won't get done.

[RegularKarate]

Move over Guillermo Del Toro, there's a new career-suicide in town.

Maybe you misread, this is a staged production, not a movie.  All this will do is attract drama-nerds and then ruin the career of the director who decides to film the musical version (hopefully not Mendes).

[Pubrick]

Oh yeah i guess i just read what i wanted to see, i still think the whole thing is boring, no wonder winslet had to abandon ship on this dude. Rev rd is looking more real each day. At least the part about being bored to death by your once exciting husband. Leaving the bond movies i guess will be his del toro moment.

[Stefen]

Who gives a shit about Sam Mendes anymore anyways? He hasn't even made a good movie. Road To Perdition looked great, but that was more Conrad Hall than anything. Only reason anyone paid attention to this dork is because he had a hot piece of ass wife. Now that she came to her senses and got rid of him he just needs to get lost.

Yeah, I know I called Away We Go one of the best movies of last year, but I just wanted to see Kate get dressed up for the Oscars.

GTFO, Sam Mendes. ASSHOLE!