In the works: Murakami's "Norwegian Wood"?

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By Alison Willmore on 07/31/2008

Filed under: In the works

In the works: A great bit of news from indirectly, Screen Daily: French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung, of the acclaimed "Vertical Ray of the Sun" and "The Scent of Green Papaya," will next been working on a Japanese-language adaptation of Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood."

The only work of Murakami's to be adapted to the screen so far have been two short stories -- "Tony Takitani," which was made into a minimalist feature by Jun Ichikawa, and "All God's Children Can Dance," which apparently yielded a short from Robert Logevall starring Joan Chen. Most of Murakami's work would seem impossible to adapt for the screen, save his recent "After Dark," which reads, unfortunately, like an annotated screenplay, and (hey!) "Norwegian Wood," one of his earlier and most straightforward novels, the chronicle of a college student during Tokyo's turbulent late 1960s who's involved with two different women. It's a favorite of mine, and Tran Anh Hung's a director whose work I've liked a lot in the past -- he, incidentally, just wrapped "I Come with the Rain," a Hong Kong-set thriller starring Josh Hartnett and "A Bittersweet Life"'s Lee Byung-hun, his first film in eight years. [Twitch]

Elsewhere, Howard Stern's hired Alex Winter, aka Bill of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure," to write a remake of "Rock 'n' Roll High School." Hey, it can't all be good news. [Variety]

Acquired: 2929 Prods. will distribute James Gray's "Two Lovers," of which I'd quite fond, through sister company Magnolia Pictures, having failed to find a satisfactory deal with an outside distributor. According to Gregg Goldstein: "'Lovers' will bow early next year with New York and Los Angeles openings... it's not yet clear whether the film also will go out via Magnolia's Ultra VOD day-and-date platform." [Hollywood Reporter]

And Strand has picked up actor Luke Eberl's directorial debut "Choose Connor," a thriller starring Steven Weber and Alex Linx. [indieWIRE]

+ Tran Anh Hung Bringing Murakami's NORWEGIAN WOOD To The Big Screen! (Twitch)
+ Stern sets 'Rock 'n' Roll' remake (Variety)
+ A Cannes of worms for indie films (Hollywood Reporter)
+ Strand Chooses "Connor" (indieWIRE)

Tags: Alex Winter, Choose Connor, Haruki Murakami, James Gray, Luke Eberl, Norwegian Wood, Rock 'n' Roll High School, Tran Anh Hung, Two Lovers

Filmbrain

Norwegian Wood is still my favorite Murakami novel, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it being turned into a film. However, I do believe that Tann Anh Hung is a lousy choice. Yeah, yeah, his film are lovely to look at, but my god is he going to make this twee!

Alison Willmore

Oh, he's not so bad -- and there are definitely plenty of Murakami fans who've leveled the same charge against "Norwegian Wood."

For the record, "After the Quake"'s my favorite thing from him, particularly "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo."

yel

I loved Super-Frog too! And the Shinagawa Monkey, and Mimi--all his talking animals, haha!

I'm afraid about Murakami adaptations because Murakami has built a very particular world. Wasn't very happy with Tony Takitani myself. I think the narration and momentary blurting out of dialogues were forced. Being a hardcore fan though, I'm still looking forward to this one.