February 05, 2004
SHAZAM! A Captain Marvel script in the works
I'm so emotionally torn on this one. It appears New Line (The guys who did Lord of the Rings among other things) is slowly moving forward with making a Captain Marvel movie. As a young kid I used to love Captain Marvel. There was even a short lived live action show based on the character that I would watch every Saturday morning. I would love to see this film… BUT…
Just the concept of a Shazam film is loaded with cheesiness potential. How you could go about making this movie in 2004 without it looking ridiculous or totally betraying the character will be quite a challenge. It would be a brave thing to try, but I don't know if it could be pulled off. I guess it will all depend on the script.
The scripters of the new version of Cheaper by the Dozen, Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, have been tapped to take a swing at a script for SHAZAM!Read the whole article here.SHAZAM! Is the touching story of a small boy, Billy Batson, who becomes a giant superhero, Captain Marvel, when he utters his magic word (you guessed it, SHAZAM! Strange, it never worked for Gomer Pyle…). There’s a previous script, written by currently descending into hideous hackdom writer William Goldman, but it’s not known what elements from that script are being saved. New Line, who owns the project, may very well be pushing it forward because a similar themed project based on Marvel Comics owned character Prime (which basically ripped off Captain Marvel) has been slowly moving ahead in recent months.
Posted by John Campea at February 5, 2004 09:09 AM
Comments
Posted by: Ben at February 5, 2004 11:51 AM
Hackdom is not just reserved for those who push out mediochre scripts. It is also for those greats who have not done much else since making a good show for a short period of time.
Aside from Princess Bride and Maverick (two of my all time fav movies) which Goldman wrote, the rest were just adapted screen plays from existing novels or stories.
And since the last thing on your list that Goldman has worked on was 5 years ago, he does threaten to dissappear into what moviebuffs call "Hackdom"
By whatever reason he got there, he just isnt bothering anymore.
Posted by: Rodney at February 5, 2004 02:12 PM
Could we keep in mind that William Goldman was born in 1931? He'll be 73 in August. Is he not bothering or is he semi-retired?
He's won 2 Academy awards, a lifetime achievement award for screenwriting, he's been a Cannes Film Festival judge and IMDB calls him "one of the most successful screenwriters and script doctors in Hollywood."
Nobody bats 1.000. the guy that won an Academy Award for adapting Forrest Gump also wrote the screenplays for The Postman and The Horse Whisperer.
What do you have to do to not be considered a hack? Show me a screenwriter that has been around as long as Goldman who has worked on as many good movies and has had as much critical success. I think you're being too hard on the guy.
Posted by: Ben at February 5, 2004 03:27 PM
Yeah, I don't know that I would call him a "hack" either"
Posted by: John Campea at February 5, 2004 05:57 PM
New Line needs to bring in Paul Dini to rewrite the original Goldman draft. The Cohen-Sokolow script must be thrown out. Chris Columbus would be the perfect director for this project.
Some casting ideas:
Omar Sharif as Shazam
Evan Marriott as Capt Marvel
Devon Werkheiser (Nick's "Ned's Declassified Guide") as Billy
Joe Pesci as Sivana
either Stacy Keibler (WWE diva) or Marne Patterson ("Nip/Tuck") as Beautia
Micky Dolenz as Dudley
Oded Fehr as Black Adam
Ben Keough (Elvis' grandson) as Freddy Freeman
Spencer Locke (Disney's "Phil of the Future")as Mary Bromfield
either Dick Gautier or Dan Aykroyd as Sterling Morris
Tom Selleck & Mary Crosby as Nick & Nora Bromfield
Tony Curtis as Freddy's grandpa
Posted by: Bret at July 11, 2005 07:30 PM
William Goldman, hack? This is the guy that wrote The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Stepford Wives, All the Presidents Men, Chaplin, Maverick, The Ghost and the Darkness and the General's Daughter. What are the films Devin Feraci is looking at to justify saying Goldman is descendng into hackdom?