Ahoy, squirts. Quint here with some news... Not sure if it's good or bad, but Vadim Perelman, director of THE HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, has left the director's chair for the much anticipated film adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub's THE TALISMAN.
I talked briefly with Perelman at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and he was very gracious and respectful of my raw (and probably very scary) excitement about this project. I love this book dearly, but it's had a troubled history.
Steven Spielberg bought up the rights to this back in the 80's and it has been boiling for a while now... I've read a draft that Richard LaGravenese turned in for Amblin in 1993. While I respect LaGravenese as a writer... he didn't crack the book. Matter of fact, I think he only got one segment right and that was the Sunlight Home... But cutting out Speedy Parker, changing the whole ending and the very essense of the Talisman itself... I wasn't a big fan of that attempt.
Ehren Kruger (THE RING) has taken the most recent crack at the book and I'm DYING to read it (hint-hint). When I talked to Perelman in Santa Barbara he told me something rather... alarming. He hadn't read Kruger's draft yet, but he had heard they were eliminating the Sunlight Home entirely for both rating (the studio is firm on their PG-13, understandably) and for time... I think that would be an unforgivable mistake if true.
Anyway, that's that. No more Perelman... Who's to step up? Maybe Spielberg can end this constant flirtation and helm this himself. It's perfect Spielberg fantasy fodder afterall. Young boy on an adventure to save his mother's life? Or even better... If there is a god we'll see this fall into the hands of Terry Gilliam!!! What do you folks think?
-Quint
