Daniel Clowes is no stranger to the movies, with his GNs GHOST WORLD and ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL having been produced, and several screenplays under his belt. Now, it looks like his recent hit WILSON may be headed to the screen. Alexander Payne is set to direct with Josh Donen producing for Sam Raimi’s Stars Road shingle.
Payne, not much heard from since the multi-Oscar nominee SIDEWAYS, has a new movie coming out, THE DESCENDANTS, described as “A land baron tries to re-connect with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident.” YOU may recall his other fine, fine films: ABOUT SCHMIDT, about a lonely older man who tries to connect with his daughter; and SIDEWAYS, about a lonely middle-aged man who tries to connect with someone.
WILSON, you might recall, is about an awkward, isolated middle-aged man who is desperate to connect with someone, anyone.
Perhaps Payne is just the perfect director for this sort of material.
And his movie, Election, about a lonely teacher trying not to connect with an ambitious high school student.
Payne’s movies usually have a dark comedy about them. I hope he films it in Omaha!
It should be interesting how they film this.
The art style varies in each of the strips. Plus the pacing itself is done in a interesting method of short one page strip vignettes. I found if fascinating how Clowes dropped a few twists by not showing you the story in-between those. There’s some stuff hidden in between the gutters and pages that surprise the reader. You really don’t get the full scope of what a creepy main character he is until reveals later on.
Also, I gotta brag that I got Clowes to sign my copy at an event in Harvard Square right after it came out. He’s a very nice guy and down to earth. Very odd to think of him involved with Hollywood films. Though certainly Wilson would make for one hell of an interesting one and this would surely (thankfully) be a smaller film. The book is already amazing on its own, of course, but it would certainly be a film that I hope would make an interestingly shaped dent in cinema.