Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Here... at last... news about a remake that doesn't make me roll my eyes, because there's no way in hell this is being done for commercial reasons. Here's a chance at something really special, and I plan to be a total obssessive freak about this movie. If you're reading this article and you're involved with THE SINGING DETECTIVE, directed by Keith Gordon, then you are my new best friend. Especially if you want to slip me a script. Or get me on the set. Or introduce me to Gordon so I can do the pee-pee dance of excitement right there in front of him.
The news that VARIETY broke in this story today is that Robert Downey Jr. has decided to play the lead in this remake of Dennis Potter's absolutely scathingly brilliant BBC mini-series, which originally starred Michael Gambon. The lead character is a fiction writer with a miserable, degenerative skin disease who is lying in a hospital, reworking an early piece of his fiction, lost in his own imagination as a way of escaping his cracked and oozing epidermis.
The idea of Downey playing the role already has me eager to see the film. Now. Today. This is the kind of stylized flight of fancy that he may just knock out of the ballpark. Keith Gordon has proven himself to be a director of smart, edgy, personal films like MOTHER NIGHT, THE CHOCOLATE WAR, WAKING THE DEAD, and A MIDNIGHT CLEAR, and he seems perfect to bring Potter's work to the bigscreen.
I'm serious about this one... it has just shot to the top of my list of things I want to know more about. Anything. Consider this a notice of intent. I plan to shadow this movie like mad and bring you guys any scrap of info I can regarding its journey from today's announcement to your local screen.
"Moriarty" out.
