Joe Carnahan to remake ‘Bunny Lake is Missing’
Joe Carnahan is a guy that really interests me, his breakthrough movie 'Narc' was absolutely stunning, and the first time i'd enjoyed watching Ray Liotta on-screen in about five years. His next film, released in January, is 'Smokin' Aces'. A movie where I really don't know what to expect, outwardly it looks like a Guy Ritchie movie but with a much better cast (any movie with Jeremy Piven in, i'm going to give the time of day) and i'm hoping, a little more depth.
In the pipeline Carnahan has 'Pride and Glory' (stills here) a movie focusing on corruption in the NYPD, starring Edward Norton and Colin Farrell. 'White Jazz' is a film adaptation of the James Ellroy book, and again involves police corruption, this time in the LAPD, and may star George Clooney. Hmmm a small part of me thinks that 'Smokin' Aces' may have been a trade-off movie with the studios. Direct this movie 'X', and we'll fund your smaller movies about police corruption 'Y' and 'Z'. Just a thought.
Anyways, Carnahan is also working on a remake of the of the 1965 Otto Preminger movie 'Bunny Lake is Missing' (with a great poster by Saul Bass, pictured). The plot centres around a woman who claims her 4-year old daughter is missing, but when detectives start to look into the case they find no evidence that the little girl ever existed and question the mothers sanity. That piece of shit 'Flightplan' owes a lot to this movie.
Joe Carnahan is working on the script with Doug Wright the man responsible for writing the original movie, and seems to be giving it the big push through pre-production to get it started and not affect the scheduling for any of his other projects. Possible stars being thrown into the pot are Reese Witherspoon(as Annie Lake, the mother), Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep.
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You can catch a script review of White Jazz over at IGN (http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/427/427488p1.html)
Although its relatively old, it would seem the script hasnt undergone any further revisements.
Clooney is also attached to co - produce White Jazz
Narc was a masterpiece in gritty entertainment, and I’m keeping a keen eye on this one.
[...] I feel like I've perhaps been overly hard on Smokin' Aces, and I have to say I didn't walk out of the film feeling disgruntled, the film did entertain me on a very basic level but after seeing 'Narc' I wanted more from it. I have a feeling Carnahan is going to come back strong with the other films he has in the pipeline, but until then Smokin' Aces is at best forgettable popcorn fare. [...]