fpw Wrote:Spoke to Barry Rosenbush yesterday. Here's the way things look:
The film will be shot in Shanghai. Because of the great temple locations available to them for the flashback, they wanted to know if they could switch from Indian mythology to Chinese. (They don't have to ask -- they own the rights -- but they did.)
I said it was okay with me -- as long as Jack stays Jack.
Yes, Jack will be Jack and the setting will be NYC. (Shanghai has excellent NYC street sets.) But Kusum and Kolabati will be Chinese, and the rakosh will be changed to something drawn from Chinese mythology.
This is all window dressing as far as I'm concerned, and irrelevant to the story.
So, they met this week, decided the elements they needed to change, and gave it to the scripter.
One problem: Chris Morgan, who's been rewriting Repairman Jack for two years now, has signed on to write the third Fast & Furious. Because of that commitment, he won't be able to turn in the Jack rewrite until June.
They tell me this will be the last major rewite. But I've heard that before.
All missgivings aside (and so far, there seem to be a few...) at the end of the day, this is FPWs puppy, not ours, and if he says the Indian mythology is window dressing, then that's that. He is the author, after all.
If The Tomb had always been centred around Chinese mythology then it would still have been The Tomb because no-one would have known any different. And like The Man says, Jack will still be Jack.
If I may stick my two penny worth in though... ( no-one in the room raises an objection, so I forge ahead.) Books will always be better than films, in my opinion. And The Tomb in always going to lose something going to the big screen. That said though, I don't think a film version is a bad thing, it's just that it's a
different thing and should, therefore, be judged as such. That the Rakoshi become something else is sad but not the end of the world.
And let's not forget, they own the rights, they didn't have to ask.
One thing though, just don't let it turn out anything like Big Trouble In Little China. It was a good film in many ways, but Kurt Russel just isn't Repairman Jack...