Todd Phillips goes different direction with Rear Window type thriller Trust Your Eyes

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

From frat humor to Hitchcockian suspense? Todd Phillips may be up to the task, but are his talents?

If this deal works out, we’ll surely see. Variety has it that WB won a hot auction for Linwood Barclay’s novel “Trust Your Eyes,” and wants Phillips to direct and produce. Dan Lin of Lin Pictures would also oversee.

TRUST YOUR EYES is likened to Hitch’s REAR WINDOW and Barry Levinson’s RAIN MAN, in a story that follows a schizophrenic, map-obsessed savant who witnesses a murder online on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He insists that his older brother investigate, and it’s not long before the siblings cross paths with a politically-connected ex-cop and his ice pick-wielding henchwoman, who are themselves scrambling to clean up after a high-stakes screw-up.

An ice-pick wielding henchwoman? REAR WINDOW meets RAIN MAN? Done deal for me, especially given the book-cover  Stephen King endorsement.

More dubious is the choice of Phillips. Sure he can deliver a crass and crude comedy…but a sleek thriller? I know he wants to branch out and all (redoing THE GAMBLER as well), but did Hitch ever do a juvenile drunk-buddy comedy? Best know your place!

What says you?