知名電影人拍攝知名漫畫改編作品已成流行風潮。
李安要拍以烏茲塔克音樂祭為主題的傳奇電影《Taking Woodstock》，對關心李安動向的台灣影迷而言不算新聞了，但是今天路透社還是從台北發了一則電訊，從李安的助理李良山口中問到了電影會在明年推出的簡單訊息，這則電訊比較新鮮的一點是引述了一位作家友人Dan Bloom的話說：「不是李安選擇了他的電影，而是電影選擇了他。」
這句話很玄，許可各種解讀，但是我卻寧願用來解讀李安與《綠巨人浩克》的淵源。
比較有趣的外電不是李安的《Taking Woodstock》，而是英國名導演肯尼斯．布瑞納（Kenneth Branagh）也要開拍根據美國知名漫畫公司Marvel Comics的作品《雷神（Thor）》，這則外電暗損了李安一下，倒是讓我看到了美商「唯利是圖」的重商主義思維。
Marvel Comics最近很紅，因為他們找到了導演Jon Favreau來拍《鋼鐵人(Iron Man)》，創造了意想不到的佳績。同一個時期呢，名導演克里斯多福．諾蘭（Christopher Nolan）連續兩集的《蝙蝠俠(the Batman)》電影更是重寫了原本利多出盡的蝙蝠俠傳奇，漫畫改編電影儼然已經成了好萊塢的搖錢樹，於是Marvel Comics決心繼續開拍該公司旗下的其他作品，《雷神》就是預定2010年推出的重點大戲之一。
漫畫版中的「雷神」Thor是一位行動不便的醫學系學生，卻意外發現原來他是被北歐天神歐丁眨入人間的兒子，平常都得拄著拐杖行走的他，結果那隻枴杖就是他的戰鎚，凡人亦有神性，殘障可以是天神，傳奇色彩讓電影有了很多特效表現的空間。
這則新聞的趣味在於多才多藝肯尼斯．布瑞納竟然也來拍攝漫畫改編作品了，他是英國知名的莎劇演員，才氣和外貌相得益彰，曾經致力於用電影來推展莎翁，也曾經試著拍攝好萊塢偏愛的驚悚片與愛情片，甚至還能透過影像來新詮莫札特的歌劇《魔笛》，拍大場面的電影他其實並不陌生，也不困難，《亨利五世》和《哈姆雷特》都有壯觀的場面調度，只是能否勝任大型動作電影？就成為隨之衍生的另外話題了。
拍電影很像賭博，有時贏，有時輸，嘗試不是壞事，最多只是投資不如預期，前車之鑑就在於李安執導的《綠巨人浩克（HULK）》，當年李安在拍完《臥虎藏龍》後接拍這部美式漫畫電影，曾經表示那就是一次好萊塢動作大片的練功行動，片商出大錢讓他去學技術拍攝從未嘗試的美國漫畫，他樂於全力付出。
關鍵在於李安就是李安，《綠巨人浩克》著力於父子關係的辯証，保持著李安一向最擅長的親情特色，但是這類電影不需要太複雜的哲理，不需要太艱深的人性解剖，大場面大爆破才是吸引觀眾的主要動機，李安的革命與創新不算成功，但也不算失敗，畢竟花了一億三千萬美金拍的電影，全球收入則近三億美金，算是不賠不賺的嘗試，畢竟2008年推出的續集作品《無敵浩克（The Incredible Hulk）》即使花了一億五千萬元，全球也只賣了二億美金而已，註定賠定了。但是片商還是把賬算在李安身上，嫌他的表現不如預期，浪費了浩克題材。不過，平心而論，綠巨人從造型到故事，大概都是漫畫英雄中較不討好的一類，李安已經化腐杇為神奇了，只是追求聲光刺激和票房營的人不明白也不接受。
肯尼斯．布瑞納的《雷神》會不會創造另一個票房奇蹟？目前言之過早，只是電影市場很現實，會賺錢的人，說的話就是真理，不會賺錢的人，就算說出了至理名言，也只如狗吠火車，沒啥影響力，其間甘苦，《海角七號》的導演魏德聖體會最深了，以前他去張羅資金時，沒人理睬，多數人都當他是吹牛放屁，如今呢，到南韓釡山參加釡山影展的他，走了一趟星光大道後，被叫喊聲和閃光燈整得七暈八素的他脫口而出了句感言是：「我好像隻猴子。」
魏德聖已經創造了台灣電影的空前佳績，他像隻猴子被人耍猴戲的心情，不是反對影迷的狂熱與影展的造勢，只是不習慣，只是想要回到最單純的創作空間去，問題是如果不是創造了這麼好的成績，鼓動了如此風潮，影迷會如此瘋狂嗎？我們常說人生不應以成敗論英雄，但是多數人還是寧願相信成功的人。
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蝙蝠俠系列是DC COMIC 不是MARVEL喔，不過搞清楚漫畫英雄是那家公司跟搞清楚歌星是哪家唱片公司一樣有時也不容易。
Hello
About this Ang Lee news, i cannot read Chinese, but babelfish translates for me a bit:
"不是李安選擇了他的電影，而是電影選擇了他"
If you email me here in Taiwan, I will explain what I meant. Actually, I didn't say those words, ANG LEE said those words, he said, when a TV interviewer asked him how he finds his movies, he said: "I don't find my movies, my movies find me."
I have more information to show you. Please email me
DAN BLOOM
Ang Lee's new movie "Taking Woodstock" has backstory of pure serendipity
[writes Dan Bloom in an English newspaper]
Taiwan-born Hollywood director Ang Lee, 53, is tackling a new movie
project, a comedy this time, about America's
famous Woodstock hippie music festival in 1969. Titled Taking
Woodstock, the film's screenplay was written by
longtime Lee collaborator James Schamus, 49, from a book by Elliot
Tiber with the same title.
Tiber's memoir was quietly published with little fanfare in 2007 by a
small publisher in New York, but now the book,
subtitled "A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life," has become
Lee's entree into the world of film comedy. It's
tentatively set for a premiere in New York on June 26, 2009 --
according to sources and several movie websites on the Internet --
around the time of the 40th anniversary of the 1969 Woodstock
festival. The three-day concert took place in the middle of August of
that year, beginning on August 15.
Rudy Shur is the president of Square One Publishers, a book company in
New York, which bought the book and
released it in 2007 without really knowing if there was a Hollywood movie in
it. But ten months after publication, a
movie deal was signed with Focus Features in New York. Focus Features
is owned by NBC Universal, with James
Schamus serving as the independent studio's CEO. Tongues are already
wagging on blogs and websites about what Lee's
take on the Woodstock era will be like. The principal location
shooting in upstate New York is set to be completed
by the end of this month, according to Variety magazine, a film
industry publication.
In a recent email interview about how the book and movie sale came
about, publisher Shur, 62, explained the book's
curious backstory.
"Two friends of mine told me about a man they knew who had a very
interesting and unique 'story' to tell, and they
asked me to call him and see for myself if the memoir project -- still
unwritten -- would make a good book. After
talking to Elliot Tiber and listening to his story about Woodstock in
the Sixties, I told him that it would make a terrific
book, but that our book company usually didn't publish those types of
memoirs and that he would be better off with a
larger publishing house that had more experience and marketing clout."
Despite Shur's advice to take his book project to a bigger publishing
company, Tiber kept coming back to him and
Shur finally said that he would take on the book, but with the same
earlier reservations he had expressed before.
"I decided that maybe it was time to take a chance with this kind of
book, and since it was my company, well, I
would do as good a job as I could," Shur added. "So I called Elliot up
and said 'Lets go for it'."
The book's genesis was complicated. "The story he wanted to tell was
basically all Elliot, but to tell it in a manner
that presented a balanced story in the way that I was looking for
meant calling in a co-writer, Tom Monte," Shur said.
"Elliot's normal writing style was very creative and
stream-of-consciousness, but I wanted more of a traditional story
narrative. I had worked with Monte before, so I signed him to put
Elliot's material into the style I was looking for.
Joanne Abrams, my senior editor, worked with Elliot to get his memoir
into a more finalized form, and Monte did his
magic with the book, too. When it was done, Elliot approved, and we
had our book."
The title of the book, and the movie, also has an interesting
backstory. Shur explained that the title was the brainchild
of Square One's marketing director, Anthony Pomes.
"We had lots of titles in mind, but 'Taking Woodstock' seemed to fit
best based on the story," Shur noted. "We felt
the title meant two things: Taking stock of your life and, in a sense,
control of your destiny -- and also taking the
experience of Woodstock, and what that cultural event meant, with you
for the rest of your life."
"Woodstock was a moment of freedom as well as a coming of age for a
new generation in America," Shur added.
"So we used that title for the book, and Lee and Schamus are using it
for the movie as well. We are delighted."
"
The book's narrative reflects a young Elliot Tiber in his 20s who was
on the brink of financial ruin at the time but
who was also in a position to help pull off one of our generation's
greatest rock concerts," Shur said. "I wanted to
include some of the most important, yet overlooked, facts of the
coming together of the concert, and Monte (Eliot's
co-writer), having also lived through the period, was able to do just that."
When the book was first released, there were only a few reviews since
Square One was not a large publisher and
did not have the same kind of marketing clout as the larger book
companies in New York. But the reviews were
nevertheless positive, and slowly, word of mouth began to spread on
the Internet at book websites and blogs.
"We could see a real 'grass-roots' interest starting to build around
the book," Pomes, the marketing director said.
"The audience was growing week by week, and we felt we held a sleeper
title that had what it took to turn into a
winner."
How the book became a Hollywood movie to be directed by Academy Award
winner Ang Lee is also a story that
Shur tells with relish.
"It will sound like a Hollywood myth, but it really happened this
way," he said. "Tibe
r was scheduled to appear on
a West Coast television show to promote the book, and while he was
waiting in the green room to go on the show, who
should sit down next to him, by pure chance, but Ang Lee."
It turns out that Lee was also scheduled to appear on that same
interview show to promote his latest film, "Lust, Caution".
"Elliot," continues Shur, "introduced himself and spent the next hour
chatting with him about his book."
"Well, when Lee went on the show, the host finished the interview by
asking Lee where he usually got his ideas
from for his movies, and Lee said that he really doesn't go looking
for stories, that they seem to come to him. And
with that he turned to Elliot, who was sitting across from him, and
gave him a sly wink."
"Nothing really happened until about five months later, when Lee had
finally read the book," Shur said. "Lee
and Schamus felt there was a movie here, and together they went to
upstate New York to visit the Yasgur's Farm
site where the Woodstock festival took place. Elliot joined them there
at the site, and the project was in the can. The agents
finalized the deal, everything was signed, and here we are. It looks
like Lee was right: in this case, the next movie
project really did just seem to come to him."
When asked if he knew there was a movie in the book from the very
beginning, Shur said: "I'll be honest with you.
As we worked on the book, I knew that Elliot's story had the potential
to make a great independent movie. It was
like no other Woodstock story ever published. I believed that we could
find a small independent producer who could
turn the book into a film. However, in my wildest dreams I would have
never thought it to be the likes of Ang Lee and
James Schamus, two Academy Award winners who would take on the
project. So far, it's been an amazing ride."
So get ready for Ang Lee's new movie set for release in the summer of
2009, although the release date is not set
in concrete and may change according to the whims of Hollywood's
scheduling mavens. In the meantime,
readers who want to get straight to the heart of this unique American
memoir can grab hold of Tiber's
book, available in bookstores and on Internet ordering sites
worldwide. No doubt, however, Lee will have plenty to say himself
about how Tiber's book
came to him, and how he and Schamus collaborated on it as a film
comedy. For now, though, Rudy Shur has
told the story his way.
"It will sound like a Hollywood myth, but it really happened this
way," he said. "Tiber
was scheduled to appear on
a West Coast television show to promote the book, and while he was
waiting in the green room to go on the show, who
should sit down next to him, by pure chance, but Ang Lee."
It turns out that Lee was also scheduled to appear on that same
interview show to promote his latest film, "Lust, Caution".
"Elliot," continues Shur, "introduced himself and spent the next hour
chatting with him about his book."
"Well, when Lee went on the show, the host finished the interview by
asking Lee where he usually got his ideas
from for his movies, and Lee said that he really doesn't go looking
for stories, that they seem to come to him. And
with that he turned to Elliot, who was sitting across from him, and
gave him a wink."
"Well, when Lee went on the show, the host finished the interview by
asking Lee where he usually got his ideas
from for his movies, and Lee said that he really doesn't go looking
for stories, that they seem to come to him.
American writer Dan Bloom, who lives in Chiayi, recently interviewed a
book publisher in New York, who told him about Ang Lee's new movie
"Taking Woodstock."
Ang Lee (李安), 53,is making a new movie "Taking Woodstock", and it is
based on a USA book USA gay writer Elliot Tiber .
The book was published in 2007 by a in New York, subtitled ''A True
Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life'', ... the movie will have its
premiere in New York on June 26, 2009 ― ― for the 40th anniversary of
the 1969 Woodstock festival. The three-day concert took place in the
middle of August 1969.
Rudy Shur is the president of Square One Publishers, a book company in
New York,
Shur recently told DAN BLOOM how the book was sold to Ang Lee for his new movie
RUDY SHUR SAID
"Two friends of mine told me about a man they knew who had a very
interesting and unique 'story' to tell, and they asked me to call him
and see for myself if the memoir project ― still unwritten ― would
make a good book. After talking to Elliot Tiber, now 72, and listening
to his story about Woodstock in the '60s, I told him that it would
make a terrific book, but that our book company usually didn't publish
those types of memoirs and that he would be better off with a larger
publishing house that had more experience and marketing clout."
"I decided that maybe it was time to take a chance with this kind of
book, and since it was my company, well, I would do as good a job as I
could," "So I called Elliot up and said 'Lets go for it.'"
"The story he wanted to tell was basically all Elliot, but to tell it
in a manner that presented a balanced story in the way that I was
looking for meant calling in a co-writer, Tom Monte,"
"Elliot's normal writing style was very creative and
stream-of-consciousness, but I wanted more of a traditional story
narrative. I had worked with Monte before, so I signed him to put
Elliot's material into the style I was looking for.
The title of the book, and the movie, is interesting . RUDY Shur said
the title was the idea of marketing director, Anthony Pomes.
"We had lots of titles in mind, but Taking Woodstock seemed to fit
best based on the story," "We felt the title meant two things: Taking
stock of your life and, in a sense, control of your destiny ― and also
taking the experience of Woodstock, and what that cultural event
meant, with you for the rest of your life."
"Woodstock was a moment of freedom as well as a coming of age for a
new generation in America,"
"So we used that title for the book, and Lee and Schamus are using it
for the movie as well. We are happy."
How did the book find its way to Ang Lee's house?
"It will sound like a Hollywood myth, but it really happened this
way," RUDY SHUR TOLD DAN BLOOM . "Tiber was scheduled to appear on a
West Coast television show to promote the book, and while he was
waiting in the green room to go on the show, who should sit down next
to him, by pure chance, but Ang Lee."
It turns out that Lee was also scheduled to appear on that same
interview show to promote his latest film, Lust, Caution (色,戒).
"Elliot," "introduced himself and spent the next hour chatting with
him about his book."
"Well, when Lee went on the show, the host finished the interview by
asking Lee where he usually got his ideas from for his movies, and Lee
said that he really doesn't go looking for stories, that they seem to
come to him. And with that he turned to Elliot, who was sitting across
from him, and gave him a sly wink."
"Nothing really happened until about five months later, when Lee had
finally read the book," "Lee and Schamus felt there was a movie here,
and together they went to upstate New York to visit the Yasgur's Farm
site where the Woodstock festival took place. Elliot joined them there
at the site, and the project was in the can. The agents finalized the
deal, everything was signed, and here we are. It looks like Lee was
right: in this case, the next movie project really did just seem to
come to him."
", in my dreams I would have never thought someone like Ang Lee and
James Schamus, two Academy Award winners who would buy my book "