The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag - Alex Proyas is still talking about it

This isn't really that new a piece of news as I first mentioned it back in August last year in one of The Random posts.

For whatever reason it has cropped up again even though the situation is pretty much the same (Proyas is talking about it but it won't be made just yet) but it does go into some of the inspiraction behind Proyas' decision to make the brilliant Dark City. Hoag does seem to be a slightly different kettle of fish though.

Alex Proyas spoke to SCI FI Wire about writing his own film adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's 1942 SF novella, The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.

"It's one of these stories that's come from my childhood, in that I read it when I was quite young," Proyas (I, Robot) said in a recent interview while promoting the March 20 release of Knowing. "That was a fairly formative story for me. It really did inspire Dark City in some ways. It's one of those pieces that you read when you're young, and I'd not really read it for maybe 20 years. Going back to it, I was actually quite surprised at how much stuff had filtered into my other work from the story."

The story centers on Jonathan Hoag, a man who one night realizes that he doesn't know what he actually does during the day and is confounded by the reddish residue he sees under his fingernails each night. Hoag hires a husband-and-wife private investigator team, Ted and Cynthia Randall, to follow him, and what the Randalls discover is horrifying—and involves mirrors, dark dreams, a missing 13th floor and some folks who call themselves Sons of the Bird.

"There's just something incredibly creepy about it," Proyas said. "Look, I think the whole concept in the story is this parallel universe that exists on the other side of a mirror. I think that's really quite fascinating. I know there have been quite a few stories done about that and a lot of films done with that concept, but it's something that I'm really excited to explore, just this universe that exists in the looking glass."

Jonathan Hoag is one of three projects that could turn out to be Proyas' follow-up to Knowing (Nicholas Cage). The other two are Dracula: Year Zero, based on an original screenplay, and The Tripods, a possible trilogy adapted from John Christopher's SF youth novels. Proyas doubts that Jonathan Hoag will get done first.

"I'm at the early stages of doing the screenplay, so who knows what direction it's going to take?" he said. "But it is something I'm excited about. I am actually doing the screenplay myself at this stage. Usually I start the ball rolling and often bring in collaborators. So I'd be surprised if it was just me right through to the end. But you never know. It really depends on how the draft goes."

Now I've not read the book in question, but it does sound like my cup of tea. Have any of you read it? Apart from the main characters opening amnesia, how similar it is to Dark City? Any more Dark City fans out there?

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The Random - Stephen Fry, Fleming, 1066, Afterburn, Run DMC, Tripods, Dracula Year Zero, Narnia, The A-Team, The Sigma Protocol, Centurion

Stephen Fry, Michael Gambon and Penelope Wilton have joined the upcoming film The Inn at the Edge of the World which has been adapted and is to be directed by the actor Charles Dance. According to The Hollywood Reporter the film tells the story of a group of unrelated people who want to escape the enforced Christmas and head off to a remote Scottish island.

John Orloff ("A Mighty Heart," "Guardians of Ga'Hoole") will pen the screenplay for Fleming, a biopic about James Bond author Ian Fleming, for Warner Bros. Pictures and Appian Way says The Hollywood Reporter.

1066 is being fast-tracked and is expected to hit production this year according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film tells the story of the famous battle in 1066 between King Harold and William Conqueror for the right to the English throne and is set to show two massive land battles and a naval exchange (that's not swapping boats). The writer is now attached too William Nicholson (Gladiator). He says that the film will show two men who start as comrades and become bitter enemies who will fight to the death at the infamous Battle of Hastings.

Matt Johnson ("Torque," "Into the Blue") will adapt Red 5 Comics' sci-fi series Afterburn for Relativity Media says The Hollywood Reporter. Set against the backdrop of a postapocalyptic Earth whose Eastern Hemisphere was destroyed by a massive solar flare, leaving what life remains mutated from radiation and fallout. The story revolves around a group of treasure hunters who extract such objects as the Mona Lisa, the Rosetta Stone and the Crown Jewels while facing rival hunters, mutants and pirates.

The writer of Notorious, the biographical film of the rapper Notorious B.I.G., has moved over to another record breaking black musical icon, that of the trio of Run-DMC. From The Hollywood Reporter. Producer Dallas Jackson has been talking about the biographical film and reveals that it's not to highlight on the shooting of Jason Mizell aka Jam-Master Jay but on the story of the rise of the hip-hop superstars who broke through making it internationally and through many genres of music and audience. “It's an extraordinary rags-to-riches journey that I'm eager to bring to the screen...And I'm hoping to have Run, DMC and Russell Simmons' involvement. This will be a big movie about the 1980s hip-hop movement that took over the world.”

Alex Proyas has been talking about two of his upcoming films, Dracula Year Zero and adaption of John Christopher's The Tripods. Filmstalker have more.

20th Century Fox has agreed to co-finance Walden Media's The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, pending final script and shooting budget approval reports The Los Angeles Times.

Fox's feature film based on the classic 80's TV series The A-Team is finally taking off after many months of difficulty. Joe Carnahan ("Smokin' Aces," "Narc") is in negotiations to direct while Ridley and Tony Scott's Scott Free Productions are coming on board as producers alongside show creator Stephen J. Cannell reports the trades.

Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear winner Jose Padilha ("Elite Squad") is set to helm the international thriller The Sigma Protocol for Universal Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter. Based on the final completed novel of the late "Bourne Identity" author Robert Ludlum, the 2001 thriller follows the son of a Holocaust survivor who gets entangled in an international conspiracy by industrialists and financiers to take advantage of wartime technology that reverses aging .

Michael Fassbender ("Hunger," "Eden Lake"), Dominic West ("Punisher: War Zone," "300") and Olga Kurylenko ("Quantum of Solace," "Hitman") have signed to star in the sword and sandals thriller Centurion for Celador Films and Pathe Distribution says The Hollywood Reporter. Set during the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 117 it tells the story of Quintus Dias, sole survivor of a Pictish raid on a Roman frontier fort, who marches north with General Virilus' legendary Ninth Legion, under orders to wipe the Picts from the face of the earth and destroy their leader Gorlacon. "The Descent" and "Doomsday" helmer Neil Marshall directs the film while Christian Colson ("Slumdog Millionaire") will produce.

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