Funke Trouble

Avast ye, me maties! Thar be a bit o' confusion with the new Inkheart film. Arrrr.

Producer Andy Licht is suing New Line and author Cornelia Funke, claiming that he first submitted a manuscript of the book "Inkheart" for consideration as a feature film but was elbowed aside when the movie was greenlighted. New Line recently wrapped production on the Iain Softley-directed film, a children's fantasy starring Brendan Fraser, and set it for distribution in spring 2008..." (full details)

Suing the original author seemed an odd movie, but apparently this fella is claiming that both Funke and New Line removed him from the project in 2003. And who is Andy Licht? The producer of Waterworld and The Cable Guy. And if it turns out that Funke did indeed remove him as he said, I'm not sure I blame her as much as I should.

Inkheart Animatronics

While we were sipping at our glasses of champagne and living our sundry lives, Lifelongreader discovered the blog of a man working on the animatronics for the upcoming Inkheart movie. Talk about a scoop. Sorry though. No pics.

Two News Items, Each More Beautiful Than the Last

I don't know where to begin.

Oh, who'm I kidding?

Variety reports that Martin Scorsese is a potential director for Brian Selznick's, Invention of Hugo Cabret. There. Now it's out. Obviously none of this is set in stone. It's at the speculation stage right now. What we do know for certain is that the screenwriter is one John Logan of Gladiator/Aviator (he likes "tors") fame. Stirring, no?

And then there's the Inkheart movie. Dark Horizons has been kind enough to post some photo stills from the shoot. Here are my top 3 picks:


Dustfinger looks a bit drugged out, but in a good way. It works for him.

Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm still not seeing this guy as Mo. The guy with the words on his face, though? Nice look.


Words fail me. I doubt they'll fail the critics.

Live From the Set of Inkheart

Tuesday is hereby known as Movie Day. All children's books made into films will be announced on Tuesdays. That is, until I completely forget that I made this rule and start posting willy nilly like before.

Anywho, the Inkheart movie is coming to fruition and Independent Entertainment News has the scoop. I knew that Paul Bettany (yum!) and Brendan Fraser (oog!) were cast, but other facts had not yet tripped upon mine gentle ears, to kill a phrase.

Facts to remember from the article:

• The third book in the Inkheart trilogy comes out in the Spring of 2008 and will be named Inkdawn.
  
• Andy Serkis is Capricorn which makes me almost as unnaturally happy as when I heard about Bettany, though for entirely different reasons.
  
• Helen Mirren is in it, which shall hopefully give Aunt Elinor that elusive subtlety she sadly lacks in the books (aw, go on . . . stone me for saying it).
  
• Toto somehow got in the movie. Toto?
  

Thanks to Book Moot for the link.