Fans of the BBC's gothic sketch show The League of Gentlemen will surely agree that, considering the series's prominent debts to classic British horror, a feature version is a tantalising prospect, writes Donald Clarke
They will be delighted to hear that Royston Vasey: The Movie is due to begin shooting around Dublin in September. A co-production of Hells Kitchen and Tiger Aspect Productions, the local film for local people hopes to build upon the partnership forged between those two companies during the making of Pete Travis's Omagh.
"All the best-known characters are in the script," promises co-producer Ed Guiney. "But it involves a major leap forward."
Spielberg, Cruise make 'War'
Following DreamWorks' sudden, baffling decision to defer Steven Spielberg's proposed film concerning the Black September assault on the Munich Olympics, which was a goer only a few months ago, on the grounds of sensitivity to the international situation, it looked as if we might have to endure a year without any new product from the Great Man. At about the same time, Tom Cruise found himself at a loose end when Mission: Impossible 3 got kicked into the long grass.
Well, Hollywood abhors any vacuum into which it might conceivably cram money. Accordingly, beardy has signed up toothy to appear in a 412 squillion-dollar adaptation of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds. Just take our wallets now, why don't you?
It takes more than a Village
Given his taste for surprising narrative reversals, M. Night Shyalaman may reluctantly acknowledge the irony to be drawn from the history of his latest, The Village, which arrives in Ireland today (see review on pages 8-9). After a fabulous US opening weekend, analysts were predicting that the horror film might single-handedly turn around a grim year for Disney's movie division. The following week's takings were, however, down a staggering 67 per cent.
Worse was to follow. Rumours abound that one Margaret Peterson Haddix, whose 1995 novel Running Out of Time ends in a similar fashion to Shyalaman's film, is considering legal action. "It's certainly an interesting situation," said Haddix. "I'm just examining what my options are."
Klan epic comes to IFI
Following last week's story concerning the cancellation of an LA screening of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, news comes that the 1915 classic - "history written by lightning", said Woodrow Wilson - will be shown in the Irish Film Institute as part of an evening course on Incendiary Cinema.
Once they have got over Nation's horrific racial politics, attendees can fume at the sexual explicitness of In the Realm of the Senses, the tendentiousness of Fahrenheit 9/11 and the sheer frightfulness of Natural Born Killers.
The course begins on October 5th. For further details contact Gráinne Humphries, (01) 6795744.
Docs & drama take awards
Congratulations to Vinny Cunningham, whose moving (and often surprisingly funny) documentary The Battle of the Bogside has been nominated for a Grierson Award, one of the most prestigious honours for such films, in the Best Historical Documentary Category. Further thumbs up are put the way of Tom Hopkin's Close and Peter Foott's The Carpenter and His Clumsy Wife, both of which have been selected for the shorts section of the Venice Film Festival, and towards Omagh, which has been picked for the San Sebastian Film Festival.
Enough of Brit pix list
No more lists, please. Last week, to the surprise of nobody, Lawrence of Arabia was named best British film ever in a Sunday Telegraph poll of that nation's film-makers. Further down the list readers reeled at the inclusion of The Bridge on the River Kwai, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Spiceworld, Brief Encounter and Ali G Indahouse. Actually, Reel News became so bored with this story we may have been reduced to making some of it up.
