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Word on the street is that old Clint “Jazz Hands” Eastwood is considering a movie adaptation of Jersey Boys as his next film. The growling, 82-year-old republican might not be the first director who comes to mind when you think “musicals,” but let’s not forget, he did sing the theme song to Gran Torino. I like to think Jersey Boys will be the world’s first “Gookbox Musical.” In that it will be about Clint Eastwood boxing gooks (his words).
Word has spread around Hollywood that the legendary filmmaker has set his sights on an adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Jersey Boys. Multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Eastwood is in talks with production entity GK Films and Warner Bros. to take on the high-profile project, though neither the studio nor the production company or Eastwood’s reps would confirm the negotiations.
Based on the mega-hit Tony-winning musical, the story chronicles the rise of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and the group’s eventual breakup.
Eastwood, whose most recent film as director was 2011’s J. Edgar (he starred in and produced but did not direct September’s Trouble With the Curve), has long been looking to bring A Star Is Born back to the big screen. Grammy winner Esperanza Spalding is the current choice to star, but that project is having difficulty casting a male lead, with a number of stars passing (Sean Penn’s name being the latest to surface).
Insiders say Eastwood would look to direct Jersey Boys, then follow with Star Is Born. [THR]
With a style that’s the antithesis of OCD tinkerers like David Fincher or Stanley Kubrick, Clint Eastwood is notorious for shooting movies quickly, to the point that he’s been known to shoot shots the actors thought were rehearsals, and then move onto the next one without doing another take. In Gran Torino in particular, where he was working with a bunch of first-time Hmong actors, the actors would go from looking seasoned in one scene to looking like complete amateurs in others, I’m assuming because old Eastwood didn’t feel like doing more than three takes. It’ll be interesting to see how that style plays on the set of musical, and by that I mean I can’t wait for him to accuse his actors of being “light in the loafers” and make theater kids cry. I think I’d rather see the making-of than the actual movie.
Above: “Squint Eastwood,” a tribute to Clint Eastwood’s confused reaction shots.
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Eastwood is cheap. He’s not going to spend anything more than he has to. I bet all of his movies have turned a profit–even the duds.
Clint and that other smoove crooner Lee Marvin also sang on-screen in Paint Your Wagon, so he’s no stranger to musicals. I heard he was in line to direct High School Musical but he insisted he didn’t want to work with a “bunch of goddamn kids,” and that sort of killed his chances.
Don’t forget “Barroom Buddies”, Clint’s duet with Merle Haggard from Bronco Billy. Also, he DID direct a few scenes of HS Musical before he was replaced for repeatedly calling Zac Efron a dirty hippie and telling him to get a hair cut.
He shoots quickly as he has to get done in order to make his standing 3pm dinner reservation at China Buffet.
Is Clint Eastwood a republican or a Republican? Does he believe that wise representatives can effectively and justly govern in his name, or does he roam Ikea giving stern lectures to furniture? The distinction is crucial.
why would this be something that anybody would want to do when it’s not about the pay check?
okayflint: Why not? Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons constituted a significant part of pop music history during their era, so why not?
TyroneSlothrop and Mr. Mancini: Eastwood stated in 2009 that he was now a registered Libertarian, not a Republican, although his curious support of Mitt Romney (with whom he actually disagreed on all manner of actual positions) certainly muddled matters.
Iris Samolian: You’ve evidently seen “Bronco Billy” (1980), but how familiar are you with Eastwood’s films from the 1960s and 1970s? For he became an icon playing scruffy, disheveled, iconoclastic characters who often challenged convention in terms of hair length or facial hair. In the original “Dirty Harry” (1971), for example, a superior asks Eastwood’s Harry Callahan, “When the hell are you going to get a hair cut?”
“Eddie Baby,” not all of Eastwood’s films have turned a profit and Eastwood does not shortchange his films, certainly not the ones that he directs. He just understands that keeping something fresh is important to making it great. Conversely, take Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” which I admire and viewed three times in the theater. The film is impressive, but there’s something just a bit too pat and overly synchronized about it, thus keeping it from true greatness. Many movies are like that, but not Eastwood’s.
Mr. Mancini,
First, I perceived no problem with the performances in “Gran Torino,” and the film prospered from its rawness, the sense of truth deriving from its unvarnished nature. Eastwood has stated that he worked more extensively with the young Hmong actors, and to the extent that any inconsistencies existed, they would not necessarily have been solved with a couple more takes, because we are talking about amateur actors, not professionals who are going to be able to make refined adjustments on the fly. But again, I did not perceive any problems. Adolescents tend to be instinctive in their behavior and erratic in their moods, so to suggest anything polished would have constituted a mistake. Again, “Gran Torino” draws plenty of power from its sense of rawness.
Second, Eastwood is probably the greatest director of actors in the history of movies. Since 1992, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nominated a performance in an Eastwood-directed film for an Academy Award ten different times (not including two acting nominations for Eastwood himself), and the institution’s voting members have awarded an acting Oscar to someone in an Eastwood film on five of those occasions. As longtime film journalist Peter Biskind wrote in the April 1993 edition of “Premiere” magazine, “Eastwood’s method works. It lends his pictures a fresh, improvisatory, realistic flavor.”
Clint was in the audience for last Sunday’s 3 PM matinee. I bumped into him backstage (on stage) after the show.