From left to right: My sorry ass, Jim Mickle, Nick Damici, make-up artist Adam Morrow
I was lucky enough to see Jim Mickle’s MULBERRY STREET at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, and it was easily the best film I saw there (check out my review HERE). I was pleased as punch to discover it was picked up to be part of After Dark’s “EIGHT FILMS TO DIE FOR,” which has just rounded out its slate and will hit theaters November 9.
Obviously, I wasn’t the only one to think there was a really talented filmmaker here, as Mr. Mickle already his his next flick lined up – an adaptation of Joe Lansdale’s crime-thriller COLD IN JULY (read Jared’s article about that HERE.)
Being nosy, I immediately bugged him for a quote asking what attracted him to the project. Here’s what my man had to say:
I went on a binge of Joe’s work while cutting Mulberry, and I really fell in love with his universe.
While we were waiting for Mulberry to get some interest in the US I stumbled onto COLD IN JULY and read it all in one sitting. It’s a really great novel and since it’s one of his early ones, there’s something raw and unfinished to it. From the start it keeps f*cking with the audience, so it’s very hard to categorize, and it’s very unpredictable so at a certain point you stop trying to guess and just give over to the characters and his storytelling.
I gave it to Nick [co-writer Nick Damici] and he read it in one day and loved it, and then the Belladonna Productions gang did the same and it was clear this was the next one. Joe’s been awesome to work with and the script is going out soon for casting and financing. Joe ranges from really dark and disturbing to B-Movie fun and humor and this one jumps back and forth in a very Lansdalien fashion.
It’s the polar opposite of Mulberry Street in a lot of ways so it will be a fun challenge to do something different in time, place, and tone. Hopefully we’ll be shooting around mid-2008.
So there you have it folks. Mickle’s excited, I’m excited, and the rest of you will be as excited once you’ve given your eyeballs over to MULBERRY STREET.