Man… I never really expected this movie’d get off the ground, but apparently they’ve been filming since April! The official site is here, and you can download the first teaser trailer here. It doesn’t show much, obviously, but still…
And the official cast includes:
Martin Freeman (The Office, Love Actually) - Arthur Dent
Mos Def (The Italian Job, Monster’s Ball) - Ford Prefect
Sam Rockwell (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Matchstick Men) - Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zooey Deschanel (Almost Famous, Elf) - Trillian
Warrick Davis (Willow, Harry Potter 1-3) - Marvin (Body)
Stephen Moore (Marvin in the H2G2 TV & Radio series) - Marvin (Voice)
Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Underworld) - Slartibartfast
And John Malkovich as a new character created by Adams for the movie, Humma Kavula - “a crazed missionary living amongst the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle Six (who still firmly believe that the entire Universe was, in fact, sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure)”.
Don’t forget your towel!!!
I’m always leary about films based on really great absolutely fabulous books. Will the humour translate? Will it create a whole new generation of Hitchhiker fans? Will strags be found next to muggles?
What are the chances of the film coming out on a Thursday?
[quote=“Yi”]Don’t forget your towel!!!
I’m always leary about films based on really great absolutely fabulous books. Will the humour translate? Will it create a whole new generation of Hitchhiker fans? Will strags be found next to muggles?
What are the chances of the film coming out on a Thursday?[/quote]
I’m pretty confident. The cast is strong, Adams’ final script revision before his passing has been used, with some polishing and a few changes (also largely based on previous drafts by Adams himself) and Adams’ family and some close friends have been involved with the movie. Odds are good the humor will carry through to celluloid - the TV series worked; that was my introduction to the series actually.
“Will strags be found next to muggles?” Well, isn’t a strag the H2G2 version of a muggle anyway?
I reckon any fan will have positive thoughts regardless. I’ve just been too disappointed lately with all the movies based on books and just because Adams had a hand in the script doesn’t necessarily mean it will translate well onto film. Look at Stephen King films :raspberry: .
Still, I’m excited to see such a great book finally getting some well deserved big screen time. The cast looks great and nothing beats dry British wit.
I can see Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox the first…but who wil play his grandfather Zaphod Beeblebrox the third? Are they going to do just the first book or will they go LOR and do all five of the trilogy?
By the way, I was inspired to write my location addendum when being frustrated by not understanding what someone was saying to me in Chinese (as usual), I thought of how great it would be if babelfish really existed.
So is the movie going to based on the books, the program(me), or the radio show of the same name and author? I suppose the books so that it will appeal to American casual fans who have not heard or seen the other outlets of this story. And Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast sounds promising.
Well, Adams changed the story a bit each time it moved medium. None of them - the radio series, the books, the TV series, the video game, the comics, nor the movie - tell exactly the same story. The movie will be a new retelling, not based on any of the prior sources, just Adams’ own story.
The screenplay being used for the film is a polished version of the final draft Adams completed before his passing, so even though details had to be changed - H2G2 always was more episodic, not really what you want in a movie, which has to be fairly self-contained - it should still be faithful to the the story.
As for whether it’ll be LotR style or more episodic, I really don’t know what to expect. It’s hard to imagine where they’d be able to break it off nicely for a first movie that could stand alone… I’ve read that in (reaaallllly) early drafts, the ending was about the time Deep Thought gives the Ultimate Answer and designs the Computer That Is To Come After. Apparently that didn’t sit too well with the director at the time - apparently 42’s not a big enough ending.
But I could see it being split across three movies, perhaps, to cover the first four books.
I picked up another book called ‘the salmon of doubt’. It was a collection of short stories and articles that he had written. Really funny stuff. Had this Genghis Kahn bit that had me rolling.
Don’t forget Salmon… also had the uncompleted draft of the next Dirk Gently story. That’s classy, even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense without the ending.
Haven’t we already watched the TV series ? So we need a film too ? So the film is going to be better than the TV series ? Hasn’t this already run its course, like 20 years ago ?
But for those of us without access to the radio programs or the TV series, it’ll be nice to get a visual onto what seems to be the improbable (so to speak!).
The TV series is available on DVD but yes, it’s probably hard to get hold of. I can’t see how the movie could possibly be better than the TV series (having the fondness for the hand-drawn graphics and clunky cardboard sets that I do) but I’ll attempt to keep an open mind about it…
