The Sparrows are flying again! New Dark Half adaptation in the works.

[Gerald]

Interesting that we're seeing so many remakes of books that have been done before. I quite like the Romero version, but it's lacking real tension I felt. Mainly the problem for me is that Timothy Hutton was not menacing enough as Stark. He remains a bit cardboard. Of course the character of Stark in the novel is a bit of a stereotype of a ruthless gangster - so how do you portray a stereotype convincingly and in an original way?
While Romero's version is one of the most faithful adaptations, I felt overall it lacked some true excitement. It doesn't do anything surprising if you know the book.
So let's see if this new adaptation will.

Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Half’ Movie Adaptation in the Works

Stephen King’s horror novel “The Dark Half” is getting the movie treatment at MGM with “Her Smell” director Alex Ross Perry on board to helm. King wrote the book in 19…

variety.com

 

[wolfphoenix]

looking forward to this.
i hope the new film has the intensity of the novel.
this story deserves it.
.....they do it right, the movie will deliver the $

 

[Gerald]

looking forward to this.
i hope the new film has the intensity of the novel.
this story deserves it.
.....they do it right, the movie will deliver the $

Intensity. That's exactly the word. That was missing from Romero's version. It felt too much like 'going through the motions'. I felt Romero's studio film before that, Monkey Shines, had more intensity and was a more interesting film overall.
Dark Half is still better than later films like Bruiser, Diary and Survival of the Dead though. Land of the Dead is fairly good.

 

[wolfphoenix]

Intensity. That's exactly the word. That was missing from Romero's version. It felt too much like 'going through the motions'. I felt Romero's studio film before that, Monkey Shines, had more intensity and was a more interesting film overall.
Dark Half is still better than later films like Bruiser, Diary and Survival of the Dead though. Land of the Dead is fairly good.

.......i agree with you about Hutton.miscast there, i think.
the role/roles require a more passionate actor.

(think DiCaprio as Louis/Phillipe in the man in the iron mask........not saying Leo for Thad/George, though)

 

[fljoe0]

Interesting that we're seeing so many remakes of books that have been done before. I quite like the Romero version, but it's lacking real tension I felt. Mainly the problem for me is that Timothy Hutton was not menacing enough as Stark. He remains a bit cardboard. Of course the character of Stark in the novel is a bit of a stereotype of a ruthless gangster - so how do you portray a stereotype convincingly and in an original way?
While Romero's version is one of the most faithful adaptations, I felt overall it lacked some true excitement. It doesn't do anything surprising if you know the book.
So let's see if this new adaptation will.

Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Half’ Movie Adaptation in the Works

Stephen King’s horror novel “The Dark Half” is getting the movie treatment at MGM with “Her Smell” director Alex Ross Perry on board to helm. King wrote the book in 19…

variety.com

I like the movie quite a lot but like you, I thought it could have been better. On the blu-ray special features, the issues that George had making this movie are detailed. This was the first movie George did that had a decent budget and with the bigger budget came the oversight from the studio. He had never really dealt with this before and was used to being able to do what he wanted (within his usual meager budget , of course). I think Tim Hutton was kind of forced on him and Tim Hutton gave George a lot of grief too. George had never had to deal with a big star ego before. So, George had to deal with a lot he wasn't used to on this movie and it affected the movie some. So the bottom line from George was that he liked the movie but wished he would have been able to do it the way he wanted to. George thought it could have been better too.

 

[wolfphoenix]

I like the movie quite a lot but like you, I thought it could have been better. On the blu-ray special features, the issues that George had making this movie are detailed. This was the first movie George did that had a decent budget and with the bigger budget came the oversight from the studio. He had never really dealt with this before and was used to being able to do what he wanted (within his usual meager budget , of course). I think Tim Hutton was kind of forced on him and Tim Hutton gave George a lot of grief too. George had never had to deal with a big star ego before. So, George had to deal with a lot he wasn't used to on this movie and it affected the movie some. So the bottom line from George was that he liked the movie but wished he would have been able to do it the way he wanted to. George thought it could have been better too.

thanx for that input, sheds a lot of light on things

 

[Gerald]

I like the movie quite a lot but like you, I thought it could have been better. On the blu-ray special features, the issues that George had making this movie are detailed. This was the first movie George did that had a decent budget and with the bigger budget came the oversight from the studio. He had never really dealt with this before and was used to being able to do what he wanted (within his usual meager budget , of course). I think Tim Hutton was kind of forced on him and Tim Hutton gave George a lot of grief too. George had never had to deal with a big star ego before. So, George had to deal with a lot he wasn't used to on this movie and it affected the movie some. So the bottom line from George was that he liked the movie but wished he would have been able to do it the way he wanted to. George thought it could have been better too.

He had more than double the budget for Dark Half than for Monkey Shines, his first studio movie, 15 million compared to 7 million. Monkey Shines has a nice intimate feel to it though, sort of like Martin.
Still, Romero's non-studio films, like Martin or Knightriders have more of a personality to them. You can feel they are efforts of someone who really cared about the subject matter, and there are not many concessions apart from budget restraints - although especially Knightriders has quite a scope to it.

I recently saw Season of the Witch (aka Hungry Wives) for the first time, his third feature. Interesting little film. It is not really a horrorfilm (because he wanted to break away from horror after Night of the Living Dead), but it still has some scenes that feel like they come out of a horrorfilm. It's hard to classify as a genre: it has some surreal elements, and overall falls in the drama catagory I suppose. The ending reminds of the ending of Night of the Living Dead. It's not directly his best film and it's filmed on a very small scale, but certainly interesting to see.
I think the film may have not done well because it is hard to classify, and they distributed it as a soft sex film, calling it Hungry Wives - although there isn't a huge amount of sex in it and just a little nudity.

 

[Ceefor]

I didn't know there was going to be a remake of this. Tim Hutton was a bit wooden.