This morning, I was browsing over the internet, looking for fashion tidbits or some newfangled style of dressing that was post-worthy, and I ended up on youtube, because you know, all the great fashions were first started on youtube, and then I found these two clips from the Wire, and I realized that some of our audience might be offended by said clips because they contain both a lot of verbal f**s (and I mean that in the true literal sense, rather than the NSFW pornish sense, although I would be careful who’s looking over your shoulder or listening to said clips while you watch) and I decided that I shouldn’t actually post them, and I needed to find something else, more in the SFW fashion vein, and then I found this post on deadline.com that OMG-STRINGER BELL from the Wire is starring in the new cinematic edition of James Patterson fictional detective Alex Cross, replacing long God-favorite Morgan Freeman.
OMG STRINGER BELL!
Now, there are two interesting bits in the article. First of all, OMG-STRINGER BELL is the best, and I would apologize to Idris Elba, who is the actor who actually plays Stringer Bell, because I’m sorry, he will always be that rough and tumble business man/drug dealer who wanted so desperately to be respectable, and is probably the character who most resembles what (who?) I believe all alpha heroes should be.
Although I’m not exactly sure that I picture OMG-STRINGER BELL as Alex Cross, who I have sort of avuncular feelings for, I’m willing to spend a few hours in the movie theater in order to investigate this further.
And from a business perspective, the article mentions the movie will be privately financed. In a NY Times article on Patterson, they mentioned that he would be working with Avi Arad to privately finance film adaptions of his work, which I thought was sort of fascinating. The idea of coughing up your own dough (or pitching to people to cough up their’s), rather than going through the traditional Hollywood money channels, which I guess are not so traditional anymore.
So, here’s the question for *cough, cough* Fashion Friday. Do you watch the Wire, do you read James Patterson? Have you ever seen a character played in film that was very far removed (Katherine Heigl is SO not Stephanie Plum!!!) from what you thought the reality of that character was, and did it bother you? And if you could pitch in to finance a movie from a book, what would be (no fair saying your own book, JK)? For myself, I think it would be interesting if someone tried to modernize To Kill A Mockingbird and set it in present day.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I didn’t watch THE WIRE, but I have loved Idris Elba since he appeared on a BBC miniseries called ULTRAVIOLET, along with another favorite Jack Davenport, about vampires being the next step up on the evolutionary ladder… And, of course he played “Mumbles” in RocknRolla along with Gerard Butler..
So, I would watch his as Alex Cross…even if I don’t read Patterson….and didn’t see Morgan Freeman in the role.
Idris Elba….mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Terri
I’ve netflixed the wire but haven’t seen it yet. Looking forward to it. Not a huge Alex Cross fan — but I did see him with Morgan Freeman (with you KO). And your guy looks hot. My wrong casting moment is also Kathleen’s perfect casting Daniel Craig is so not my idea of Bond. Love him. Love looking at him, but I have to pretend he’s not Bond. Because for me at least he just isn’t my idea of the man.
On a side note, if you guys want to see who I’d invite to my perfect dinner party. And//or win a copy of Desperate Deeds (i know promo, promo) check out… http://booksandmakeup.blogspot.com/2010/08/guest-post-dee-davis-author-of.html
And I don’t think you can possibly do better than the original version of To Kill A Mockingbird. It’s pretty much as close to perfect as a movie can be.
LOL about Daniel Craig. They cast him in the Steig Larsson (sp?) movies (Girl with A Dragon Tattoo), and that was a decision that only made me appreciate the idea of the movie more.
I would agree with you on TKAM, but I LOVE West Side Story, and I wonder if TKAM doesn’t have that same sort of timelessness, that actually might resonant a lot right now. Anyway, it just popped into my head, and I liked the idea of it.
I Loved The Wire. I watched it on Netflix and I couldn’t watch the episodes fast enough. I thought the whole series was spectacular. It was well written, well acted, well directed. I believe they did everything they could to make it as realsitic as possible too.
Anytime I see one of the actors from that show on TV in a new part I’m glued to the screen to see what kind of character they play.
As for a book into a movie, I’d love to see Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander made into a movie. My only fear is they’d never cast the right actors to play Jamie and Claire and it would stink.
Leslie
Thanks for chiming in. I saw both Bunk and Clay Davis together on Law & Order (playing lawyer and client), and it was like seeing old friends. And just FYI, Wallace is on Friday Night Lights as one of the main characters, and he’s doing a great job.
re: Outlander, I’ve heard that a ton, but I wonder if there are some books where a movie could never live up to the story (when a lot of told through internal narrative, maybe?). I don’t know, but I would worry about Outlander. I hated when they did Chronicles of Narnia. Yes, the movies are okay, but nowhere nearly as good as the books.
Are they doing a stephanie plum movie with Katherine Heigl? I can’t overstate how much knowing KH is in a movie will keep me away from seeing it. She’s so not urban Jersey.
James Patterson seems to have tons of business-saavy from his previous career, and I find his career and decision-making very interesting to follow because of that. I’ve not read any of his books though.
I almost never enjoy a movie-adaptation of a book, so I’m having a hard time coming up with suggestions.
Michelle, yes. That scream you heard from Jersey was not from Jersey Shore, but from thousand of Trenton natives, who deplore this casting decision (In all fairness, I just completely made that up. I have no idea how the people of Trenton feel, but I. Am. Not. Happy).
I did love the KH character in Gray’s Anatomy (until they made her character stupid), but she is not one that makes me want to run out and buy a ticket (unless it’s Grary’s Anatomy: Izzy and Alex: The HEA).
I think Patterson is fascinating, too. I do enjoy his books (not Luuuurv this, but when I see one that looks good, I pick it up). I think he (JP) is sort of this larger than life person, something that you don’t see in real life, someone who writes like a machine in order to probably make gazillions of dollars, and you know he’s driven by some internal tick-tock that makes me do this. You see it all the time in businessmen, but not in writers, so the combo is very interesting.
Good grief, if I’m going to recommend a book, I should at least get the title right. The book is Sundays at Tiffany’s (not Breakfast). Sorry!
Blame deadline dementia.
It was really a charming, lovely book and I enjoyed it very much.
I loved The Wire, and OMG-Stringer Bell, too. You are right, Kathleen, he will forever be the model of the bad boy desperately wanting respectability and losing all in the end. Wow. I don’t read Patterson, so don’t know about that.
As for books to movies, I wish they could do Phillippa Gregory justice. The Othr Boleyn girl butchered the true history, which was racy enough in real life
I think a Phillippa Gregory adaption would be cool. I missed out on the Boleyn girl (I think because of the reviews), but that time period is such a stunning setting.
And Forbes just released their list of the 10 highest paid authors for the year (2009?) and Patterson is #1, raking in 70 million last year. 7. Zero. Million. I think I need to sit down.
Stephanie Meyer (sp?) is second with 40 million. With her, or JK Rowling, or Follett (#4), I am not as astounded, because their earnings have peaks and valleys, but I’m betting that Patterson just keeps pulling it in year after year.
I’m agog.
I am defeated. i saw that list too (notice it was Forbes “guess”) at how much they make. But still…no wonder Patterson is funding his own movie. He probably has no idea what to do with all that dough
LOL, Jacquie. Glad to see you here. I had decided that I had offended everybody and people were shocked, quietly shaking their head’s. “Oh, that Kathleen. Bless her heart.”
So, that is SO cool about your friend co-writing with Patterson! He sounds like a total machine, so i think that watching his process up close and personal would be fascinating.
I’ll have to check out Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I read a lot of his thrillers, not so many anymore, only because I can’t keep up and I don’t quite love them as much as the first ones.
I have thought about the JD Robb books, but my only worry would be on the creation of her world. she’s very loosy-goosy on it, and I think it would be easy for a director who is not so talented to turn the setting of a futuristic NY into a caricature rather than giving it some real depth and texture. But Pierce Brosnan as Roarke? Absolutely. I wonder if that’s who had pictured in her head when she started writing the sophisticated Irish poet billionaire.
That’s a perfect fit.
As for the Wire, it was a crime series on HBO that ran for five seasons. It’s very urban, very dark, very harsh, but the writers did an awesome job of taking this traditional stereotyped world and bringing the characters inside to life. It reminds me some of the Godfather in the way in which the bad guys are really sort of the good guys (no, they’re not heroic, but they have this strong sense of honor and code). If you don’t like gritty stuff, it’s probably not your cuppa, but the writing, dialog, and characterizations are very well done. Sometime when you have about 30 hours to kill, (assuming it might be your cuppa), you should rent the DVD’s and watch.
Okay, I’m going to be totally unhelpful here–I’ve never even heard of Wire, and the only James Patterson book I’ve ever read was Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and that’s because my friend Gabrielle Charbonnet co-wrote it with him (I loved the book, btw–highly recommend it). If I could pitch in to finance a movie (assuming it isn’t one of mine
), it would be to bring the JD Robb books to the silver screen. I wish they’d done it 15 years ago–I would have loved to see Pierce Brosnan play Roarke.