Will director Ivan Reitman get Big in China?
Mar. 24, 2011
While GHOSTBUSTERS 3 continues threatening to exist, Ivan Reitman meanwhile is readying other potential directing gigs.
One of them is BIG IN CHINA, an adaptation of the book Big in China: My Unlikely Adventure Raising a Family, Playing the Blues and Reinventing Myself in Beijing by Alan Paul. According to THR, Reitman's production company Montecito Pictures has snatched up the film rights for the new memoir, with Reitman possibly lining up to direct.
From THR: "The book recounts his time in Beijing, where he relocated from suburban New Jersey with his family when his wife, Rebecca Blumenstein, was named The Wall Street Journal’s China bureau chief.
Becoming a stay-at-home dad, Paul spent hours exploring the city while his three young children were in school. One day, he wandered into a guitar shop to see if someone might be able to fix his guitar, which had been damaged en route to China.
He struck up a conversation with Woodie Wu, a young guitarist and owner of the shop. Paul’s own musical talents had been long dormant, but together, he and Wu forming a blues quintet with two other Chinese musicians and an American (the U.S. Treasury representative to China).
Woodie Alan, the name of their band, took the Beijing club scene by storm and became a national touring sensation."
While there's certainly a cute personal story to be told about Paul's unlikely rise to fame, the more potentially interesting element is the "backdrop" story of how the film would portray China itself as both a growing superpower and its place as an increasingly Westernizing nation. It's that kind of thing - if done right - that can make a film really great. Though I question whether or not Reitman has any "great" left in him after dreck like NO STRINGS ATTACHED...
| Extra Tidbit: | Haha, Woodie Alan. |
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| Source: | The Hollywood Reporter |
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Haha, Woodie Alan
Great band name!
Great band name!