If You Made A Movie

[happyfilmluvguy]

WHAT would the story be AND the genre?
WHO would be the central (main) characters?
WHERE would it take place?
WHEN would it take place?

Depending on who the central characters are, what are their background stories if they have one?

WITH classic actors/actresses and/or modern actors/actresses, WHO would you cast in the movie?

And the difficult question for those who brave it....

If you could NOT make a period film, answer the questions above, only the movie has to take place in the present, but classic actors/actresses can still be casted.

 

[Quigley Brown]

I'd probably make it Dogme 95 style. It would take place in the 70s and involve members of an Amish community (the 'where' would be the midwest). The plot would be simple...about a dark hidden secret. All the actors would be totally unknown. I'd make it at least two and half hours long. I'd make it to be seen and understood by a very intelligent audience.

 

[plain old dave]

The Lost State Of Franklin.

Story: Frontier patriots try to form a state out of what was then western North Carolina (now Northeast Tennessee; between modern Johnson City and Maryville, TN) in the face of Indian attacks and North Carolina opposition. For more details, click here.

Setting: The 1785-1790 'Tennessee' Frontier

The Players (modern era choices in parenthesis):

John Wayne (Mel Gibson) as John Sevier, the undefeated Indian fighter and Territorial Governor of Franklin

Maureen O'Hara (Jennifer Garner?) as "Bonnie Kate" Sevier, his wife

Walter Brennan (no modern casting) as James Cosby, the sidekick

Frederic March (Tommy Lee Jones or Billy Bob Thornton) as Col. John Tipton, the North Carolina heavy

Duncan "The Cisco Kid" Reynaldo (Edward James Olmos) as Dragging Canoe, the Cherokee Indian heavy

Jimmy Stewart (Christian Bale? Brad Pitt?) with a cameo as young Andrew Jackson, a lawyer on the make and on the rise headed through Franklin to Nashville. Future President Jackson and his party barely avoided an Indian attack in ths area during the time the Lost State of Franklin was a going venture.

Spencer Tracy (Kelsey Grammer) as Pres. George Washington

Henry Fonda (David Keith) as John Crockett, David's grandfather. Col. Crockett's grandparents were murdered by Indians near what is now Dandridge, TN in this era.

Overall, a rootin'-er, tootin'-er, shootin'-er The Fighting Kentuckian or The Patriot.

 

[Fletch]

King of the Clarinet, starring Keanu Reeves as Artie Shaw.

With Scarlett Johansson as Lana Turner, Rachel Weisz as Ava Gardner, and John Turturro as Artie's arch rival Benny Goodman.

The story follows Artie from 1925, as a teenage clarinet and sax prodigy, to 1940, when he is one of the biggest names in music. Along the way he struggles with his identity in many different ways: as musician, as intellectual, as husband, as rich man, as star.

The settings: New York, Hollywood, the ethereal cloud-world of Pop Culture that stretches between them, and down below, the dusty hard reality called The Road.

 

[Smithy]

I've produced a couple of things already (it's my job)! But unfortunately nothing feature yet.

If I could I'd love to do a feature version of Andrew Greig's novel "That Summer". Maybe down the track...

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Would like to film a play I wrote a decade ago about Joan of Arc. However, in the play, she is middle-aged, still alive, and in a convent in Germany (there is a small body of literature that supports the idea that she did not burn at the stake, someone else did and that she was spirited away to live her life elsewhere out of the public eye).

At one time, I would loved to have cast Vanessa Redgrave in the role of Jehanne D'Arc, and the Mother Superior role to another good character actress, maybe Joan Plowright, or Anne Bancroft or ...? However, Vanessa is now too old to play a 50-plus year-old, Plowright is too old, and Bancroft is deceased.

Would like to get Meryl Streep and maybe someone like Dame Judi Dench to play the parts. Dench is too old to play a 50ish character, too, but I could always modify that role.

Dream on, Karol....

 

[LizzieMaine]

Is This Seat Taken?, a breezy comedy of life, circa 1936, behind the scenes at a small family-owned movie theatre threatened by takeover by a merciless corporate chain. Pulling together, the family and townsfolk overcome all obstacles to keep the show on the screen.

The Cast:

Pa Jackson, kindly old founder of the Panksville Playhouse, who's sorely tempted by the buyout offer --- Henry Travers

Ma Jackson, who'll bounce a film can off the head of any big-city rascal who tries to shut them down -- Marjorie Main

Sally Jackson, their oldest daughter, who thinks she could make a real go of the place if only they'd give her the chance -- Priscilla Lane

Beatrix Jackson, the bratty snooping little sister -- Jane Withers

Larry Whumple, Sally's bumbling boyfriend, who dreams of a career as a song-and-dance man -- Jack Haley

Gordon Cashman, the slick lawyer representing Global Theatres Inc. in their bid to buy out the Playhouse, who may or may not be sincere in his pursuit of Sally -- Warren William

Aggie Porter, the snappy-talking house manager/ticket seller at the Playhouse, who doesn't think much of Cashman and tells Sally so -- Patsy Kelly

Smokey Derkins, the gruff old projectionist who's worked for the Playhouse since it opened and is the only one who knows how to keep the place running -- William Demarest

Harding W. Leffingwell, editor of the Panksville Post-Picayune, who smells something rotten in the Global Theatres deal and is determined to find out what -- Ned Sparks

Lawrence Cashman, Gordon's father, and the President of Global Theatres Inc, who wants the Playhouse because it's there, and perhaps more -- Edward Arnold

Songs: Is This Seat Taken?; Rollin' In The Aisles; You're Just Picture Perfect; Popcorn, Peanuts and Me; Movies Are Your Best Entertainment!

 

[Gideon Ashe]

WHAT would the story be AND the genre?
WHO would be the central (main) characters?
WHERE would it take place?
WHEN would it take place?
Depending on who the central characters are, what are their background stories if they have one?
WITH classic actors/actresses and/or modern actors/actresses, WHO would you cast in the movie?

A lovely thread. Good for you!!

I would make a film with a consolidation of two or more of the books of Alan Furst, the brilliant "Spy" genre novelist.
Night Soliders, Red Gold, The Polish Leuitenant, Dark Voyage, The Foreign Correspondent, just to name a few.
That would allow for at least three sequels, or even a prequel.

There is a thread of time that tracks through each novel; an urgency, and although there is no single reoccuring protagonist; there is more of a "feeling", with repetitive appearances of minor second, third and even forth level characters, human wallpaper, who act as a form of literary mortar for the bricks of the plot and structure of the books.
Each novel takes place at the begining of or in the midst of, or just after WWII in the rubble of Europe.

For actors; male & female I would use non-stars, most likely seasoned, non beautiful but rather talented journeymen actors with Americans playing the parts of Americans where appropriate, British, playing Brits and certainly Europeans playing the appropriate nationals.
However, there would be absolutely no mush mouths. A major failing of many films is the poor sound quality and terrible slurring of dialog, in favor of blowing things up or the after scents of sexual encounters.

I can think of no "Stars" that would be allowed in my "Night& Shadows" series.
The stories are the stars. The telling of those stories are the stars.
The actors are the merely the means that advance the end telling.

No one would ever give me the money to produce such a project.
Their loss. I have already done it in my mind.

It was Excellent!!!lol lol lol lol

 

[SamMarlowPI]

Two young Italian kids in Hell's Kitchen, Post WWI, who get swept into the mob and get deeper as they grow up stretching to the 1930's where it all comes to a head...not sure of the cast...

 

[Gideon Ashe]

Two young Italian kids in Hell's Kitchen, Post WWI, who get swept into the mob and get deeper as they grow up stretching to the 1930's where it all comes to a head...not sure of the cast...

Make that four kids, switch them from Italian to Jewish, replace "Linguini" with "Noodles"; add Tuesday Weld and bada-boom-bada-bing,...?
You have Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America"!

 

[SamMarlowPI]

Make that four kids, switch them from Italian to Jewish, replace "Linguini" with "Noodles"; add Tuesday Weld and bada-boom-bada-bing,...?
You have Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America"!

Nope, Italian...besides that's already a movie...i'd be plagiarizing...

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

It would be collosal,...stupendous!

Produced, directed, and written by me. And it would be a surrealistic, docudrama, romantic musical, screwball comedy all about me.
Of course starring me, ....and oh, somebody like,...Kate Beckinsale maybe.

[/IMG]

But I wonder what I should call it?

 

[Diamondback]

I'd do remakes of all Fleming's Bond novels, true-to-the-novel adaptations as period-pieces.

Maybe faithful-to-the-novel (as in, "almost use the book as the script") versions of Cussler's works, or a period-piece redo of the Bourne trilogy--the Matt damon versions have been gutted, with nowhere near the action and suspense of Ludlum's novels.

Clancy's Without Remorse, straight-from-the-book, with Willem Dafoe (Clark's original depictor in Clear and Present Danger) as Clark.

And Dale Brown's novels, in storyline sequence, done the same way (with the early ones as period-pieces, too). Maybe Tommy Lee Jones as General Brad Elliot?

Casting, I'll edit in later.

 

[sweetfrancaise]

I wrote a short-story a while back based on "The Other Woman" (Nina Simone) set in the early thirties, about a woman making a living being a rich man's mistress, and being thrown to the side. Starring Natalie Portman and Alfred Molina, I think, and the woman who runs the boarding house played by Joan Plowright.

 

[Ed Bass]

Two young Italian kids in Hell's Kitchen, Post WWI, who get swept into the mob and get deeper as they grow up stretching to the 1930's where it all comes to a head...not sure of the cast...

The casting is easy:

Humphrey Bogart
James Cagney
Jeffery Lynn
Priscilla Lane
Gladys George
Frank McHugh

It's impossible to improve on the perfection of Raoul Walsh's choices in 1939 when it was originally made.

Best, Toots

 

[Spitfire]

"OLGA"

I have allready written it - only waiting for the right producer to pick it up.

Story:
A young american fighterpilot - Johnny - escaping from a POW-camp in the winter 1945, seeks refugee at a german farm.
The daughter on the farm - Olga - and he, falls in love during the few days he is hiding out on the loft.
He suddenly realizes that he is propably responsible for the death of Olgas mother one year before. The moral question is now wether he shall tell her and her father about it or not.
Olga's father - the farmer and WWI veteran - has promised to kill the first allied airman he finds, in revenge of the killing of his wife. But hesitates because he remembers how he himself were treated as a POW by the british during WWI.
The local mayors son - a member of the SS - and Olga's former boyfriend finds the american hiding out on the farm. And the whole siuation explodes.
Who will help who?
Must Johnny tell the truth?
If Johnny escapes - will he ever come back?

Its a highly tense and psychological drama between very few people. Everything - or almost everything - takes place on the farm in the cold, cold winter. It's in black and white.

The story builds on John Godfreys own experiencies during WWII.
And I have used his book "The look of Eagles" as background.

Casting: ???? No idear. But I deffinately want a young american actor to play Johnny and some german actors to play Olga, the father, the young SS officer etc.

What do you think Spielberg????

 

[Mike in Seattle]

Is This Seat Taken?, a breezy comedy of life, circa 1936, behind the scenes at a small family-owned movie theatre threatened by takeover by a merciless corporate chain. Pulling together, the family and townsfolk overcome all obstacles to keep the show on the screen.

The Cast:

Pa Jackson, kindly old founder of the Panksville Playhouse, who's sorely tempted by the buyout offer --- Henry Travers

Ma Jackson, who'll bounce a film can off the head of any big-city rascal who tries to shut them down -- Marjorie Main

Sally Jackson, their oldest daughter, who thinks she could make a real go of the place if only they'd give her the chance -- Priscilla Lane

Beatrix Jackson, the bratty snooping little sister -- Jane Withers

Larry Whumple, Sally's bumbling boyfriend, who dreams of a career as a song-and-dance man -- Jack Haley

Gordon Cashman, the slick lawyer representing Global Theatres Inc. in their bid to buy out the Playhouse, who may or may not be sincere in his pursuit of Sally -- Warren William

Aggie Porter, the snappy-talking house manager/ticket seller at the Playhouse, who doesn't think much of Cashman and tells Sally so -- Patsy Kelly

Smokey Derkins, the gruff old projectionist who's worked for the Playhouse since it opened and is the only one who knows how to keep the place running -- William Demarest

Harding W. Leffingwell, editor of the Panksville Post-Picayune, who smells something rotten in the Global Theatres deal and is determined to find out what -- Ned Sparks

Lawrence Cashman, Gordon's father, and the President of Global Theatres Inc, who wants the Playhouse because it's there, and perhaps more -- Edward Arnold

Songs: Is This Seat Taken?; Rollin' In The Aisles; You're Just Picture Perfect; Popcorn, Peanuts and Me; Movies Are Your Best Entertainment!

Sounds like it would be a hoot and a half!

 

[SamMarlowPI]

The casting is easy:

Humphrey Bogart
James Cagney
Jeffery Lynn
Priscilla Lane
Gladys George
Frank McHugh

It's impossible to improve on the perfection of Raoul Walsh's choices in 1939 when it was originally made.

Best, Toots

nope, still wouldn't work...they were adults...

 

[Ed Bass]

nope, still wouldn't work...they were adults...

OK, Point taken. Then it would have to be Cagney (Rocky Sullivan), Pat O'Brien (Jerry Connoly) and The Dead End Kids (Angels With Dirty Faces). At the film's start Rocky & Jerry were kids on the wrong path. Mob life for Rocky, etc., etc....then the chair.

Best, Toots

 

[Nathan Flowers]

Seven Samurai versus The Magnificent Seven