THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED, COMING NOT SOON TO A LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PROBABLY NOT NEAR YOU
The Day the Clown Cried might be the most famous film that almost nobody’s actually seen. It all started with Jerry Lewis wanting to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor and as a director, things got a little out of hand and long story short, he ended up making a movie about a clown in a Nazi concentration camp, a movie so bizarrely wrong that it had Lewis had it locked away…forever…until now…well not now, ten years from now…maybe.
Lewis has apparently made the film available for future generations, safe in the knowledge that at 89, he probably won’t be around much longer and also kids in 2025 won’t know who the hell Jerry Lewis is. Lewis has donated the film (among other things) to the Library of Congress, on one condition: they do not show The Day the Clown Cried for another ten years. That’s what they should have done with Chinese Democracy, you know? Still, this is exciting news for…oh, I don’t know. The French?
JOSH TRANK IS THE TRUE MISTER FANTASTIC, STRETCHES AWAY FROM TERRIBLE FANTASTIC FOUR MOVIE
The newest Fantastic Four movie tells the story of a bunch of young upstarts, highly promising in their fields, working hard on achieving something great, only to have it blow up in their faces and leave them permanently altered, in their eyes, for the worse. On an unrelated note, Josh Trank’s career is in a bit of a downspin and he’s got some things to say.
Rumours about the shoot for FF and departing the Star Wars spinoff he was attached to have left Josh Trank, considered a promising young director after Chronicle in a bit of a bind, and after the (really boring) Fantastic Four was panned by critics, it’s not surprising that Trank is attempting a salvage job by distancing himself from the film altogether. In a tweet that’s since been deleted, Trank said that a year ago he had a “fantastic” (ahaha) version of the film that would’ve gotten great reviews, that we will sadly never see. Trank is obviously frustrated that the studio have rejiggered his film into a slog that nobody likes that he now has to carry the can for, and while it’s refreshing to see him speak out against the big guys, it probably won’t do his chances of directing a blockbuster in the next few years much good. But is that a bad thing? The trend today is for big studios to give developing filmmakers the keys to franchise kingdoms right after their first success, in many cases stunting their development, in some cases stifling their creativity and in cases like Trank’s, chewing and spitting the young directors out leaving them embarrassed and embittered. Hopefully Trank can succeed in the future with some smaller-scale films, and we can all put this whole Fantastic Four business behind us forever.
GAMBIT SEARCHES FOR SON CHERI
The circumstances surrounding Fox’s standalone Gambit movie-that they’re doing it at all, that it’s starring odd choice lughead (Channing Tatum), that it’s lead seemed to leave the project then come back in the space of about a week-make it seem more like a plot from a season of Entourage than an actual thing that is really happening, but it is happening. And just as Vinny and his cabal of loathsome friends might have slobbered over the choices to cast as the female lead (all probably cameos from actual famous actresses, grinning and bearing it), so now the people behind the solo Gambit movie that we’re all just supposed to accept is being made turn their attention to casting a beautiful lady for Channing Tatum’s Gambit to Peppy Le Pue all over.
According to Deadline, testing is to begin next week for an actress to play Belladonna Boudreaux (Gambit’s old bae from the bayeux) and there are three front runners for the part, all actresses you might have seen in movies lately. They are Rebecca Ferguson, Tom Cruise’s equally super-competent counterpart in Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, Lea Seydoux, soon-t0-be in Spectre and formerly of Blue is the Warmest Colour (also the last Mission Impossible) and Abbey Lee, who played one of the brides in Mad Max: Fury Road (the blonde one). Presumably this screen test will involve seeing who can pronounce “Thieves Guild” in the silliest way.