Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Michael Fleming, one of the most reliable and frequent scoopers in the business, landed a good one today over at Variety.com regarding a reteaming of Fred Schepisi and Steve Martin:
"Director Fred Schepisi and actor-writer Steve Martin, who last collaborated on the 1987 romantic comedy ROXANNE, are back in business again. Indie production company Abandon Pictures has optioned screen rights to Martin's play PICASSO AT THE LAPINE AGILE, with Schepisi aboard to direct next spring. Martin's not expected to star. The play, which premiered at the Steppenwolf Studio Theater in Chicago in 1993 before moving to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, is a comedy about a fictitious night in 1904 when Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein meet by chance in a bar."
Wow. This is what I consider truly colossal news. To my mind, there are many different Steve Martins. There's the brilliant stand up comic who released the landmark albums LET'S GET SMALL and A WILD & CRAZY GUY, and who wrote CRUEL SHOES, long out of print. There's the early Steve Martin in films, bold and experimental, unafraid to mix the silly with the sublime in films like THE JERK, DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID, THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS, and ALL OF ME, all in collaboration with Carl Reiner. There's the journeyman actor who's done solid work over the years, both serious and comic, in pictures as diverse as LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, GRAND CANYON, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES, THE SPANISH PRISONER, and PARENTHOOD. Then there's the creepy Steve, the commercial whore who has made some truly rotten comedies over the years like HOUSESITTER, THE OUT OF TOWNERS, the FATHER OF THE BRIDE movies, MIXED NUTS, and SGT. BILKO.
There's another Steve Martin, though, that I suspect is the "real" Steve Martin. He's the guy who wrote ROXANNE and starred in it. He's the guy who gave us LA STORY. He's the one who just published the novella SHOP GIRL, and he's the guy who wrote PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE. This Steve Martin is capable of magic... not the kind of magic that was packaged up as a trick and sold at the stand outside the Haunted Mansion where Martin worked as a teenager. Real magic. The kind that can get inside a viewer and affect them, transport them. There's moments of such grace and beauty in both of those films, moments I've never forgotten. He reaches. There's something noble in watching a writer reach for something, take a risk, walk a metaphorical tightrope and pull it off. I hope that he and Schepisi are able to recapture the magic they had when they worked together the first time. I'll definitely keep my eye on this as they cast it. I wish all the artists involved nothing but luck. If they make what they could make, this is going to be a classic.
"Moriarty" out.
