Werner Herzog, David Lynch's 'Random Dealmaking' Quotas Filled For '08
It was cute way back yesterday when we heard that Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage are remaking Bad Lieutenant for a new generation of prurient cinephile wonks, but the novelty of Herzog's random-ass pairings requires a certain period of recharging to retain maximum effect. Which is perhaps why the potency of his other forthcoming, newly announced collaboration with David Lynch (!) on "a horror-tinged murder drama" doesn't have us positively reeling with anticipation.
But the Lynch/Alejandro Jodorowsky film? With Asia Argento, Marilyn Manson and reportedly "enough sex and violence to guarantee an NC-17 rating"? Fine, Hollywood Reporter, we're listening:
Herzog and his longtime assistant director Herbert Golder co-wrote [My Son, My Son], loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man who acts out a Sophocles play in his mind and kills his mother with a sword. The low-budget feature will flash back and forth from the murder scene to the disturbed man's story. A guerrilla-style digital video shoot on Coronado Island is tentatively set for March. ...
In a separate development, Lynch's Absurda production company has attached Asia Argento and Udo Kier to star with Nick Nolte in Alejandro Jodorowsky's metaphysical gangster movie King Shot. Marilyn Manson is touted to appear as a prophet in the Sin City-style film.
Having essentially gone DIY since his own unwatchable digital epic Inland Empire, Lynch will executive produce both films and handle their sales at Cannes, hitting the Croisette with his cow and selling Herzog impersonations to foreign buyers for $100 apiece. We hear Herzog, meanwhile, had to be forcibly removed from the Kung Fu Panda press conference after pitching a Grizzly Man remake to Jack Black.