By Don Kaye, Source: Blastr.com
Now that the remake of Carrie is officially underway, the head of the studio producing the film has revealed some interesting details about what direction it might take.
During a speech at his alma mater, MGM CEO Roger Birnbaum spoke about some of the company’s upcoming projects, with the new version of Stephen King’s classic first novel among them. According to a Reddit report on the speech, Birnbaum revealed that at least part of the new Carrie will be filmed as “found footage,” a la films like Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity.
The mock-doc style, as it’s also known, certainly has as many detractors as it does fans. Whatever side of the debate you fall on, however, it’s worth noting that King’s original book itself provides an opening by which the movie could be shot this way.
King’s slender novel (the original hardcover was just 199 pages) is only partially a traditional narrative. The rest of it is made up of interviews, book and newspaper excerpts, police reports and letters, mostly written in the aftermath of Carrie’s climactic rampage through her town.
Director Kimberley Peirce and screenwriter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa are reportedly going back to King’s novel for their take on the story, so it’s quite possible that the “found footage” technique might be their way to visually translate the style in which King wrote the book (and technically speaking, the footage might not be positioned as “found” but shot in that fashion to re-create the feel of news interviews and so forth). At the very least, it seems that this is going to be quite different from Brian De Palma’s 1976 movie.
Carrie is due for release on March 15, 2013, with Chloe Grace Moretz in the title role and Julianne Moore possibly playing her insane mother.
Do you think that the filmmakers will use the “found footage” esthetic to actually stay more faithful to King’s book? Or are they just trying to cash in on a trend that keeps churning out hits at the box office?