Screenwriters’ Dispatch: Sean Ellis and Anthony Frewin’s Anthropod

Sean Ellis and Anthony Frewin have written WWII drama Arthropod, the name of an operation using Czechoslovakian soldiers trained by the British Army to assassinate General Reinhard Heydrich, who lead Nazi forces into the country.

The Wrap reports Marc Guggenheim‘s written an adaptation of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, titled Uprising, chronicling a civil war against Earth from a Lunar colony.

Variety reports Diablo Cody‘s rewriting Barbie.

Deadline reports Michael Berg‘s adapting Mrs. Frisby & the Rates of Nimh, which Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer hope will establish a franchise. The story’s to be an origin of a mouse who teams-up with super-intelligent lab rats to escape a laboratory and lead mouse civilisation against Humanity.

Harve Bennett‘s died. Bennett’s most popular screenplays were Star Trek III: the Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home.

Deadline report Jeff Buhler‘s sold Descendent to Lotus Entertainment, inspired by news reports of real events of parents who become worried over the source of their son’s above-average intelligence. Buhler said

I have always been fascinated by the concept of reincarnation which is a widely held belief for billions of people around the globe. Descendant explores this world in a very personal and frightening way that has never been realized on film.

The Hollywood Reporter claims reports Eric Heisserer has adapted Ted Chiang’s Prisoners, in-which a xenolinguist and physicist are recruited by the government to assess the intentions of aliens that have landed all over the world, but experiences flashbacks that develop the secret truth of who these beings are.

Debbie Horsfield‘s spoken to Radio Times over the adapting of Poldark:

He is a rebel and he is not an outcast so much but he stands apart from the rest of society. What I loved about Ross Poldark is that he has got a bit of Tom Jones and a bit of Mr Darcy because he’s a gentleman and bit of Rochester and a bit of Rhett Butler and a bit of Robin Hood. He is actually all the good heroes rolled into one and yet he is his own unique personality. That’s what’s great about him. He does have a strong sense of justice but he’s not priggish about it. He’s a leader but he doesn’t seek leadership – but people will follow him. That’s a true leader. I think the books are so extraordinary. I feel more pressure doing justice to [them] in the way I would feel about doing justice to a Jane Austen or a Dickens. I’d be doing [Poldark]  for years and years but I love the stories so much.

Deadline reports Drew Pierce is working on a second instalment in the Ghostbusters Cinematic Universe, featuring an all-male version of the team.

Jenji Kohan, Bruce Miller and Tracy Miller have co-written The Devil You Know‘s pilot, about the Salem Witch Trials that divides New England.

Tax Analysts reports the federal government of Mexico have offered Sony Pictures Entertainment $20M if they make screenplay changes to more positively represent the country. They claim the intention is to show modern Mexico City structures and its skyline. Part of the conditions is to cast a Mexican as Estrella, who can’t be herself Mexican. Bond uses Estrella’s apartment as a base of operations while hunting an assassin targeting the governor of the Federal District, which the offer proposes becomes an international leader instead, while the Federal District Police becomes a special force. Bond’s confrontation with the assassin currently leads to a cage match in an ambiguous location, but Mexico are requesting it instead be a chase through Mexico City during the Day of the Dead celebrations.

Steven Moffat, co-screenwriter of the upcoming Sherlock special, has spoken to Entertainment Weekly over the function of Victorian production design seen on set:

The special is its own thing. We wouldn’t have done the story we’re doing, and the way we’re doing it, if we didn’t have this special. It’s not part of the run of three episodes. So we had this to do it – as we could hardly conceal – it’s Victorian. We wanted to do this, but it had to be a special, it had to be separate entity on its own. It’s kind of in its own little bubble.

The Hollywood Reporter claims Craig Kyle‘s written a Blue Thunder retelling about a military helicopter with technology of a potential future.

CNN reports Jonathan Herman‘s rewriting Scarface.

Indiewire reports Ehren Kruger‘s writing a serial adaptation of The Brothers Grimm.

BBC News reports Douglas McGrath‘s adapting his stage-play musical Beautiful, chronicling the career of Carol King, into a motion picture.

Armando Iannucci, writer of The Thick of It starring Peter Capaldi, has confirmed interest in writing a Doctor Who episode for the actor. Speaking to The Guardian, Iannucci said

I’m a big fan of Doctor Who and obviously with Peter, who’s loving it, it would be nice to. I’ve spoken off and on to them but it’s a case of being able to fit something in. It’s a nice thought. In our conversations there was an idea we had, but it may be a wee while yet before we get round to working out when it would be. Knowing I am committed for the next year or so, it’s all on hold. Let’s get back in touch when we can.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jason Segal and Drew Pearce have been hired by Warner Bros. to write The Million Brick Race, an installment in the LEGO Cinematic Universe.

Speaking to Comic Book Resources, Simon Pegg has spoken about how he came to write Washington Project and what it’s about:

It just came out of conversations I was having with J.J. and Bryan Burk, and they decided to kind of like restart the process. Because I’d been on the set with Burk-y on Mission: Impossible, he said, “Maybe you should come on and write it with Doug and Justin and him and Lindsey Weber”. And I was a bit, “No. I don’t want to – it’s too much pressure!” But I think we just want to take it forward with the spirit of the TV show. And it’s a story about frontierism and adventure and optimism and fun, and that’s where we want to take it, you know. Where no man has gone before – where no one has gone before, sensibly corrected for a slighter, more enlightened generation. But yeah, that’s the mood at the moment.”

Den of Geek reports Alien Nation is to be rewritten by Art Marcum and Jeff Holloway.

The Hollywood Reporter also reports Friday the 13th‘s reboot is to be written by Nick Antosca, whose draft resulted in the production’s green lighting.

The Wrap reports Fifty Shades of Grey writer Kelly Marcel has departed the sequels Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.

It’s been announced Jamie Mathieson and Catherine Tregenna are writing episodes for Doctor Who‘s ninth season, titled The Girl who Died and The Woman who Lived.

It’s reported that Disney have bought a screenplay by Elizabeth Martin and Lauren Hynek for a Mulan retelling, based on the Chinese legend of warrior Hua Mulan, who disguises herself as a male to join the army, becoming a national hero with her dragon companion Mushu.

On his blog, GRRM, in an entry titled Conventions and Cancellations, George R.R. Martin stated he won’t be writing an episode for season six of Game of Thrones, adapted from his novel series A Song of Ice and Fire. He said:

after wrestling with it for a month or so, I’ve decided not to script an episode for season six of GAME OF THRONES.  Writing a script takes me three weeks, minimum, and longer when it is not a straight adaptation from the novels.  And really, it would cost me more time than that, since I have never been good at changing gears from one medium to another and back again.

The Telegraph reports Stan Lee‘s writing an original superhero drama, Lucky Man. Detective and gambler Harry Clayton acquires a charm that gives him control of luck. His gambling’s lead to his wife and daughter abandoning him, his boss suspects him of Theistic Satanism and he’s in-debt with a crime kingpin. Lee said

Luck has always been a fascinating subject to me, and I am excited to finally share that fascination with audiences around the world.

Screen Daily report Steve McQueen and Debbie Tucker Green are co-writing a six-episode miniseries chronicling the lives of Black people in London from 1968 to 2014. McQueen said

I don’t think there has been a serious drama series in Britain with black people from all walks of life as the main protagonists. This isn’t a black Our Friends in the North.

Production company Rainmark managing director Tracey Scofield told Broadcast

He wants to reach a very wide audience with this. It is very entertaining and moving. Steve has done a lot of research on it and we’re now working on the script and appointing writers with an eye to shooting next spring.

Hot Fuzz — review

Screenplay  by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg.

Hot Fuzz is a nice change from the kind of action trends apparent in the Hollywood motion picture industry. Because the United States is the cinematic capital country of the world, most actions include American versions of the police force. Now I don’t know how exaggerated they are, but World’s Scariest Police Chases make them seem accurate. Which makes the main thing to like about Hot Fuzz the way it combines those cliches with British policing. We don’t have Ford Crown Victorias, we have Vauxhall Astras. We don’t have gun-wielding officers, we have special divisions for that. And our uniforms are less subtle. Plus, we take a completely different approach, with community cohesion being considered more important than actually preventing crime. This clearly occurred to Wright and Pegg, who decided to make a statement about this by inserting American action cliches into a British environment, and created the town of Sandford, inspired by the real fake village used for training. It’s probably the most English place there is, because everyone’s white. And given what we later learn about Sandford, it seems that the Neighbourhood Watch Association has a racial motivation, along with everything else.

Hot Fuzz, then, comes down to two things: a comparison. There’s realist Sergeant Nicholas Angel, whose goal is to make Sandford the best village it can be, and populist Officer Daniel Butterman, who prefers guns and chases. But for a protagonist who cares so much about the community, he’s only been transferred to the Sandford Police Service from the London Metropolitan Police Force. And Butterman, who prefers the exaggerated, arguably less realistic, part of it, is actually from Sandford and would be more suited to London. Two opposing idealists stemming from their own opposites. Part of the social parody is that these two people are from the wrong place, as if they should swap their lives. Especially since Angel is a much better law enforcer than Butterman, despite the reverse normally being true. As is the way the action takes place in a village, and the enemy is a neighbourhood watch. All of which aren’t just non-existent in most police pictures, but are the inverted opposite of what audiences are used to. Ergo, in a genre filled with cliches, Hot Fuzz is a clever reinvention by showing audiences the underside, but still including a realistic portrayal of crime – it just comes from a different place.

Another thing it does well is to accurately represent the amount of paperwork that policing involves. Every arrest is followed by the criminal process system, and it sums-up the way Wright also chose to direct. Because British policing is arguably less interesting than other countries, he makes the boring parts look exciting. The mug shots, criminal lineups, and door openings are shown in a flash montage, whereas the action sequences are made to look cliched. Hot Fuzz makes the statement of the heart of law enforcement is in the administrivia, with what the public see merely being a facilitator.

All of this comes to a front so that, by the end, there’s been a major amount of character development. Angel’s still able to be a by-the-book officer, but is still able to be social, why Butterman’s learnt from him to become a much better one, while he in-turn made Angel more able to integrate socially. What we get in the end is a clever satire of the police action genre, a realistic spoof of British policing, and a story of two friends who teach each other how to grow up. Ultimately, it’s a buddy cop story, which is catalysed by the other elements.

It’s just a shame there’s no serial continuation.

Hot Fuzz – genre spoof as realistic satire 9/10.