Hunchback of Notre Dame (Tim Burton + Josh Brolin)

[kvz5]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/heat-vision/josh-brolin-tim-burton-teaming-162551

Tim Burton and Josh Brolin are teaming up to bring The Hunchback of Notre Dame to the big screen.

Warner Bros. is developing the project with the duo and is bringing on board scribes Kieran and Michele Mulroney, who wrote the upcoming Sherlock Holmes sequel for the studio.

Hunchback, an 1831 novel by Victor Hugo, tells the story of Quasimodo, a deformed and hunchbacked bell-ringer of the Norte Dame cathedral who tragically falls in love with beautiful gypsy named Esmerelda.

The book has long intrigued the film and TV worlds -- it was first adapted in 1905 into a film titled Esmeralda -- although the last major adaptations were in 1997, the year that saw a high-profile Disney animated movie and an action-heavy pic starring Mandy Patinkin and Salma Hayek.

The book features Quasimodo fighting off troops, love and betrayal, a hanging, a swing off a belltower and bodies and graves galore; in short, stuff that seems tailor-made for Burton.

But the project, being spearheaded by Brolin, who would also produce as well as star, is in the nascent stages. Burton, who is in preproduction on Dark Shadows for Warners, is interested, but his commitment is dependent on the outcome of the script.

If Hunchback does come to pass, it would be Brolin’s second crack at a deformed personage after starring as the title character in Jonah Hex, Warners’ Western featuring the facially scarred DC Comics anti-hero.

Brolin is repped by CAA. The Mulroneys are repped by CAA and Management 360. Burton is repped by WME.

 

[Catman]

Josh Brolin? Burton worked with his dad in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. He played PW Herman. lol.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Who is Depp gonna play?

 

[Catman]

No one, I assume.

 

[Drizzle]

Brolin seemed kinda Quasimodo-ish in "True Grit". I could see him in the lead role.

 

[Brother Jack]

Another remake for Burton.

 

[HighFivingMF]

Another remake for Burton.

But the main character will be... PALE!

 

[nite-owl]

Who is Depp gonna play?

Esméralda?

 

[KRIM]

This seems like a perfect for Burton. I really hope it turns out a lot better than Alice in Wonderland. Such great potential and it felt like a film only stoners could bear.

I honestly would not mind if Tim got back to his dark, gothic roots ala Sleepy Hollow.

 

[dude stannis]

People can bash Alice all the want, but ever they forget, the film right before that was Sweeney Todd.

If he can bring it like he did in Sweeney Todd, then I'm up for this.

 

[Secret Fawful]

Depp will be Frollo. Just you wait and see. and he would be absolutely wrong for the role. Actually, I wonder who could play a good Frollo....perhaps Christoph Waltz...

....Hmm. Or maybe Depp would be Phoebus.

 

[DACrowe]

Another remake for Burton.

But is this really a remake? I mean of which one. There is no definitive version per se. The closest is the silent Lon Chaney movie from the 1923 (which if anything will be the main inspiration to Burton). But what about the Charles Laughton version from 1939? I mean this is obviously not a remake of the Disney film that bastardized the story.

I'm up for a new adaptation to tell it right as most think this is a Disney fairy tale. Besides, seeing Burton branch away from Depp is always nice.

 

[Secret Fawful]

Yeah, the Disney version was hardly a "fairy tale". And it was a pretty great adaption for them, in fact it's their best movie IMO. Not every adaption has to be true to the book. If that was the case I would just read the book, not that I'm against a straight adaption.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Ashwarya Rai would make a good Esmerelda.

 

[Brother Jack]

But is this really a remake? I mean of which one. There is no definitive version per se. The closest is the silent Lon Chaney movie from the 1923 (which if anything will be the main inspiration to Burton). But what about the Charles Laughton version from 1939? I mean this is obviously not a remake of the Disney film that bastardized the story.

I'm up for a new adaptation to tell it right as most think this is a Disney fairy tale. Besides, seeing Burton branch away from Depp is always nice.

Maybe it will be more of an adaptation of the original book, I don't know. Given Burton's track-record with adaptations I'm not exactly ecstatic about this. Seems like more of the same, though Josh Brolin is indeed an inspired choice.

 

[Catman]

Whatever happened to that Monster movie he was making for DreamWorks? Wasn't he supposed to make that one after Dark Shadows?

 

[Doc Ock]

It seems like Tim Burton is doing a thousand things at once!

 

[Doctor Jones]

Who is Depp gonna play?

As much as I love Burton, I wish he would do more than just adaptations and remakes. I still have to see Sweeney Todd.

And yet this could turn out good, but I wish he did something else.

 

[El Payaso]

Excellent. Hunchback is a story that I always thought would be perfect for Burton. And it was about time he worked without Depp.

Another remake for Burton.

Remake of what exactly?

 

[DarkSovereignty]

^ but didn't we all think that alice in wonderland was going to be a perfect fit for burton as well?

 

[El Payaso]

^ but didn't we all think that alice in wonderland was going to be a perfect fit for burton as well?

I actually thought that is wasn't. I posted that in that thread months ago that the least thing Alice needed was another version.

Now of course that the movie can't be weak, just as Alice was, any movie has chances to be bad.

 

[CGHulk]

This is what I see Tim Burton will do.

Josh Brolin as Captain Phoebus

Johnny Depp as Quasimodo

Helena Bonham Carter as Esmerelda, I hope he finds someone more young and beautiful, but his wife has to be in everything he does now.

Alan Rickman as Frollo

 

[Homer J. Fong]

Okay, so Tim Burton works with his friend Johnny Depp and his girlfriend Helena Bonham Carter (they're more than that, but she uses the term "boyfriend," so whatever) a lot. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are excellent actors, and they consistently do excellent work with Tim Burton. Burton/Depp and Burton/Bonham Carter are great creative partnerships. So they work together a lot - so what? Did people complain this much every time Scorsese collaborated with De Niro? Or Sam Raimi with Bruce Campbell? Wes Anderson with Bill Murray? Scorsese with Leonardo DiCaprio? Now, I'm sure some people do roll their eyes and say, "Oh, great, Scorsese's doing another movie with DiCaprio again, yawn!" and so on for all of those pairs I just listed and more, but I think there's way too much contempt for Burton working with his two favorite people. Because the results are always good. Of course, not everyone agrees with that, and I guess a lot of people feel that, by this point, Johnny Depp is just trotting out variations of the same lovably unbalanced creepy guy, or that Tim Burton keeps bringing him out to wear wild wigs and make funny voices. I don't really agree with that, but I'm sort of jumping the gun anyway, because Johnny and Helena don't have anything to do with this, and neither does Tim necessarily. I'd be all for seeing Tim Burton do a version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I liked what The A.V. Club said about it, basically, dangle a gothic cathedral in front of Tim Burton and he'll sign on for whatever. Much as I love the guy, that's not unfair.

On the casting front, Josh Brolin as Quasimodo would be great (I don't think there's been any reporting that that's the part he'd be playing, but still), and I would love to see Eva Green as Esmeralda (which is possible, she is in Dark Shadows after all), and Alan Rickman as Judge Frollo is incredibly obvious, he's basically played that role before, once for Tim Burton even (as Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd), but I suppose there are others who could do it well; Michael Gambon or Ben Kingsley or Albert Finney, to name a few (and Finney's worked with Burton a couple of times)