A new story from Filmspotting
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Cast, I had to lean on Debbie as well. She said, Helen Mirren came to mind, and I think, honestly, I think Helen Mirren should take this as a compliment, looked up her age, she's actually 77, so being thought of as 60 in cast to play 60 pretty good for her as well. The director, I'm going to say, let's give this one to Ryan Johnson. I think you'd have fun with it. And the story, as was being described to me, it seems to have a little bit of a poker face vibe. In fact, if you watch that series, think of the year of the monkey episode with the two nefarious older women in the retirement community, I kind of like that sensibility being brought to this material. Now, I should note lucky McKee actually directed that episode in the rian Johnson series, but I'm bringing in Johnson for this for killers of a certain age. Again, the author of that book is Deanna rayborn. Now, it sounds like a brilliant choice, but the only way that's allowable, Josh is if you pull Debbie into the closet and she made the pick on the show. She's next ironically, she's working at the library right now. It's not possible. She's on shift. All right, I'll go next with my number 5. You know someone who hasn't had enough of his books, adapted into movies. Stephen King. I'm going with one of the few. The eyes of the dragon. This is a fantasy book that was first purchased back in the late 1990s. Sat in development hell, the right slaps, sci-fi channel came along, I think, around 2012, or just before that, they were going to make it into a film or miniseries. The rights lapsed there. And around 2019, Hulu beat out Apple in an auction for the rights, I think they're still sitting on them, but a planned project that was going to be helmed the showrunner was going to be the producer of it. Seth Graham Smith. He is now confirmed fairly recently that that's out that eyes of the dragon will no longer be coming to Hulu as a TV series. And here's a little bit from the Mary Sue about this. Among kings pre 1990 books that were first published under his own name, it's one of his only fantasy titles, along with the talisman and the dark tower books. That haven't yet been adapted, though all have been in development at one point or another prior to 2017. I referenced that because if we were doing the show prior to 2017, the dark tower would have been maybe my number one from Stephen King. And maybe I could still use it as a choice here guys because I just like to pretend that the 2017 film of the gunslinger never happened despite the fact that they cast Idris Elba as the gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey as the man in black. Like, you tell me that, I don't need to come up with my own fantasy casting. I'm all in. Unfortunately, the film was just awful. The eyes of the dragon is or was a huge departure for king at the time. As I said, one of his early books, he was really known as that horror master. I think it was his first foray into fantasy, the story goes that he wrote it for his daughter. Naomi, who was young at the time, and she wasn't into horror and didn't want to read his story, so he wrote a book in a genre that she did appreciate and that she could read. I'll give you just a little bit of the plot description here. A tale of archetypal heroes and sweeping adventures of dragons and princes and evil wizards. Here is epic fantasy is only Stephen King could envision it. A kingdom is in turmoil as the old king Roland dies and it's worthy successor, prince Peter must do battle to claim what is rightfully his. Plotting against him is the evil flag in his pond, young prince Thomas, yet with every plan, there are holes, like Thomas is terrible secret, and the determined prince Peter, who is planning a daring escape from his imprisonment. Wizards, dragons, princes, there isn't a market for the eyes of the dragon. I just can't believe it. So who is going to star in this thing? This character, the evil wizard flag is someone who has appeared in like 9 or ten of Stephen King's stories is a recurring character in different forms. I found one website Josh that described him as the ultimate villain of the king multiverse. And he appears first, I think, in the stand, and he's described as a tall man of no age in old blue jeans, a denim jacket, an old cowboy boots. And then in eyes of the dragon he shows up as a thin and stern face man of about 50, despite being much older, he hides himself under a dark cloak and most of his magic comes from spells, potions, and poisons. So in my head, I immediately go like Voldemort. You know, like Ralph Fiennes ish, maybe Mark rylance, some other British guy or a European actor, maybe a Mads Mikkelsen. I'm going to go against type. I'm going to cast an actor in this role as this ultimate evil villain. I'm going to cast an actor who just exudes empathy and warmth and everything that's right with the world. And that's Keanu Reeves. I know he's John Wick and he's a baddie there, or he's a badass. But he's not a bad guy. Remember what launched this whole revenge tale was his dog dying and, of course, a lot of time devoted to losing his wife. So Keanu Reeves, and then here's my director that I'm going to get terrible emails about in social media comments. Because it's a terrible idea. No, don't take another. I know. That's why that's why. That's why it's a terrible idea, Josh. I'm admitting it's terrible because we don't all want