The good news is that Josh Hartnett has a brand-new movie called "Bunraku" that sounds like it could be "Sin City" all over again. The bad news, unfortunately, is that he also broke the news to me at Sundance that his passion project about the legendary Chet Baker is now dead.
"It's not gonna happen," the "30 Days of Night" star sighed. "We’ve been working on this for years, and the producers and I just couldn’t see eye-to-eye."
As you might recall, the 29-year-old heartthrob broke the news to MTV at Sundance 2007 that he was expecting to play the drug-addled jazz man sometime this year. Titled "The Prince of Cool," the project was at various points rumored to be flirting with "Driving Miss Daisy" director Bruce Beresford. Now, nearly a year to the day, Hartnett is officially squashing his "Prince" project. Read more...
I recently caught one of the first-ever screenings of "30 Days of Night" (so new, in fact, that writer Steve Niles was seeing it for the first time), and it's a top contender for bloodiest movie of the year. Whether it's bloody good or bloody mediocre is an argument for another day - but after the screening Niles and director David Slade had some bloody interesting things to say about the Josh Hartnett flick.
"Every year, I'd check the paper just about the time [northern Alaska] goes dark, and there was always a little human interest piece about it," Niles said of the inspiration behind the comic-turned-movie. "[I read that] alcohol wasn't legal -- you could bring it into town, but they couldn't sell it there because of the increased suicide rate -- and I was like 'God, what kind of people live in this place?' So I tore it out -- this is like 12 years ago -- and I wrote 'Vampires' on the corner." Read more...