Unmade Stanley Kubrick script Lunatic At Large heading into production this fall
Aux Features Stanley Kubrick
A pair of film industry vets are taking a crack at an un-produced screenplay written by the late Stanley Kubrick. Variety reports that producers Bruce Hendricks and Galen Walker are developing the film noir thriller Lunatic At Large—one of three scripts discovered following Kubrick’s death in 1999, and one of several collaborations with pulp novelist Jim Thompson, who worked with the filmmaker on The Killing, Paths Of Glory, and Spartacus. The New York Times once described the story as “a dark and surprising mystery of sorts, in which the greatest puzzle is who, among several plausible candidates, is the true escapee from a nearby mental hospital.” Hendricks is a former president of physical production at the Walt Disney Company, where he oversaw the making of more than 250 films, including The Sixth Sense and Armageddon. Walker has over 30 years of experience as an executive, producer, and writer. While a director for the project has not been announced, the pair intend to head into production on Lunatic At Large this fall.
There have been other attempts to bring Lunatic At Large to the big screen, including a 2006 project shepherded by Kubrick’s son-in-law, Philip Hobbs, and a final draft written by Stephen R. Clarke. That iteration was set in New York in 1956 and centered on “Johnnie Sheppard, an ex-carnival worker with serious anger-management issues, and Joyce, a nervous, attractive barfly he picks up in a Hopperesque tavern scene.” In 2010, Lunatic At Large was in the news again, this time with an adaptation starring Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson. Many filmmakers have tried and failed to mount a production of Kubrick’s other unmade stories, including Cary Fukunaga, who was attached at one point to adapt Napoleon into a miniseries for HBO.
13 Comments
The Killing is Kubrick’s best film and I will not entertain any arguments otherwise. Hopefully this gets made, it’s good and Jim Thompson’s estate can get some more residuals.
You’re entitled to your clearly wrong opinion. Although I do LOVE The Killing a ton. It is definitely up there as far as best, but for the sheer imagery and Malcolm McDowell I’ll take Clockwork over it ever so slightly. My favorite part of The Killing is the casting of Timothy Carey, who should have been in WAY more films and whose film “The World’s Greatest Sinner” is a lot better than dipshit Frank Zappa inferred.
The Killing was remade as QuentinTarantino’s career.
The Killing is great but to say its better than 2001 is like saying McDonald’s is better than a steak. You’re objectively wrong.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey 2. Dr. Strangelove 3. The Shining 4. The KillingFourth place may not seem high enough but bear in mind it puts it above (in order for me) Paths of Glory, Barry Lyndon, Eyes Wide Shut, A Clockwork Orange, Lolita, Fear and Desire, Spartacus, Full Metal Jacket and Killer’s Kiss – and there’s a lot of greatness in there that it beats. Got a chance to see The Killing in 35mm last year which was as amazing as you’d imagine.
Please don’t let Steven Spielberg near it. Please don’t let Steven Spielberg near it. Please don’t let Steven Spielberg near it. If I say it three times, it just might work!
But don’t you want the inevitable scene after the movie has already had a decent ending where there is a time jump and aliens or whatever come in to give the main character everything he wanted?
That ending was Kubrick’s idea.
AI is still one of the worst films I’ve ever seen
i kind of liked it.
Blue Fairy to turn unmade Kubrick script into a real boy.
omg, i am such a HUGE jim thompson fan!
If this movie ever gets made the script will be rewritten considerably because film conventions, particularly dialogue, have changed so much since it was first typed. Not only that, directors these says are so full of themselves they’ll want to inflict their “vision” on it.Not to say this will be a bad thing. Kubrick’s numerous collaborators have commented that he was a lousy writer. The only one he may have been better than was Arthur Clarke. Regardless, this won’t be a Kubrick script by a mile.