Hey folks, Harry here... Well, just a few days ago I told you about Brian De Palma filming an adaptation of James Ellroy's THE BLACK DAHLIA with Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson and Mark Wahlberg. That film is in active pre-production and is going to be shot pretty soon it seems. Meanwhile, TOYER based upon Gardner McKay's book of the same name and starring the pair mentioned below... well, it's an intended project without a studio behind it, though Tarak Ben Ammar (producer on the brilliant FEMME FATALE) is attached. The most interesting thing about the project to me is that over at IMDB they claim that Pino Donaggio is attached to TOYER as composer, which would be fantastic. I love De Palma and Donaggio's collaborations. They always feel more filthy.
Hi Harry & Moriarty
Just checking out one of my favourite actors Jeremy Northam and I have found that he is signed for Brian De Palma's new thriller Toyer with the most lovely Juliette Binoche. The plot sumery makes interesting reading:
Toyer is a "serial-lunatic" who doesn't kill or rape his beautiful female victims. Instead, he "toys" with them psychologically and uses a surgical instrument to place them in a coma. Because Toyer is not technically a killer, the police department and the district attorney could only charge him with mayhem - hardly a crime worth investigating. So, a reporter who has helped expand his paper's readership by covering the city's latest demon, enlists a neurologist who has treated Toyer's victims and considers herself in a personal battle against his sadism to draw him out.
Sounds good. De Palma is a great director and The Untouchables is one of my favourite movies, but Mission To Mars was a total nightmare. Couldnt believe that cast could drop the ball so badly. High hopes for this one, though.
Regards
Easily Pleased
Ahhhh, a De Palma expert to the rescue! Here's the lowdown on TOYER...
Hello, Harry,
This is Geoff from De Palma a la Mod (Click Here To Visit). I just saw your post about TOYER. This is a project De Palma has been working on for about two years already. It was tentatively to start filming in January 2003, then January 2004. Now it will (for sure) shoot from October to December 2004. Part of the problem before was that Juliette Binoche was signed to be in BEE SEASON, and that film got moved up to a January start. Now De Palma will make BLACK DAHLIA first, and then jump into TOYER.
The film will be shot in Italy at Roma Studios, and in Venice. De Palma had wanted to shoot at the Carnival of Venice, but was unable to get permission due to security reasons. Now a version of the Carnival will be staged for the film.
De Palma was talking about this project as he made the rounds upon the release of FEMME FATALE in November of 2002. The plot that you have up right now on your site is not really accurate. That posted plot sounds taken from a synopsis of the novel, but De Palma is adapting his film from the original one act play by Gardner. De Palma has written the screenplay himself, and has said specifically that it is not based on the novel, but on the original one act play that people have been trying to make a film out of for years. That play had only two characters, but De Palma has expanded the story to include several other characters, and has been casting the film these past couple of months.
Some news regarding BLACK DAHLIA: Last month, De Palma went to Berlin to interview cinematographers for this film, including Michael Balhaus, Frank Griebe, and Thomas Kloss.
Geoff
