NEWS: Terrible Director to Butcher Yet Another Great Book

CULTURE: Terrible Director to Butcher Yet Another Great Book

You're reading Hollywood Reporter. For a moment, your heart skips a beat. What, you think, they're actually making a movie out of one of my favorite books? Why, I remember lying in my bed tearing through the pages of Mysteries of Pittsburgh years ago, you exclaim! This is going to be awesome.

Hmm, you think. Mena Suvari...haven't seen her in a while. Peter Sarsgaard's pretty awesome. Sienna Miller looks pretty in all the tabloids. And Nick Nolte? I guess I could give him another try.

But that's when you see it:

And that, my friends, is when you refuse to speak to Hollywood ever again.


photo location

At least it's not Uwe Boll.

I loved that book.

I fail to see what the problem is.

I, too, loved that book. I remember reading the last couple of chapters in the bathtub and sobbing. I was young.

I liked that movie =/

well that movie was supposed to be stupid... that was the point. maybe he'll do OK with another genre. you can't judge one against the other because they are totally different types of movies.

ps yay pittsburgh!

I heard Michael Chabon specifically asked for Thurber, based on how much he loved Dodgeball.

i thought dodgeball both the PG and unrated cut were hysterical

but i dont get this.

many directors started out doing silly films

Francis Coppola Dementia 13

Jonathan Demme did Married to the Mob, that wasnt his first flick though

Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha wasnt that great

wes craven did a movie with meryl streep almsot 30 years after last house on the left

I'd like to throw in a little bit more support for Dodgeball as well. The movie is hilarious.

Hey! Dodgeball rocks!

I like Chabon so much more now.

Actually Dodgeball was meant to be a heartwrenching period drama describing a love triangle that spanned two centuries until Thurber got ahold of it...

What a stupid complaint. Maybe, just maybe this guy is versatile enough to apply the appropriate style.

I don't see the problem either.
It's not like the guy is Michael Bay or something

please tell me somebody loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay as much as me

I have no idea what the book was about, but Dodgeball totally accomplished what it set out to do....make me laugh. (Yes, the movie was made for me specifically - crazy, huh?)

Maybe it's a weird pick for whatever genre the book is, but to say Dodgeball was terribly directed is flat out wrong.

+1

He totally butchered the book.

Dodgeball: the Novel was so much better.

Give the movie and the director a chance. Like so many others have pointed out, you can't judge the director off of one film. Stephen Spielberd directed 1941, and if one was to judge him on that work alone, never to watch any of his other movies, they'd be cutting themselves off from a fantastic body of works.

It's gotta be the hair. It's beautiful. Feathered and lethal.
If you want to see a book ruined in movie form all you need to do is rent "The Beach" (why the fuck did they ruin Daffy like that?), and that was done by Danny Boyle, I'm cautiously optimistic as of now.