Director Don Sharp 1922-2011
Hammer stalwart dies, aged 89
The director Don Sharp, whose long career included a string of Hammer classics, has died aged 89.
Born in Tasmania, Sharp headed for England after the Second World War, embarking on a film and television career that spanned four decades. He started out with acting roles in the likes of The Cruel Sea and the famous BBC radio sci-fi series Journey Into Space, but soon turned to writing and directing.
Following some domestic dramas, crime thrillers and teen rock’n'roll movies in the fifties, he scored his first job with Hammer on 1963′s Kiss Of The Vampire, the studio’s second attempt at a Dracula follow-up without Christopher Lee (or indeed Dracula). He did however get to work with Lee on the subsequent The Devil Ship Pirates and Rasputin The Mad Monk, and away from Hammer, the pair also collaborated on the first two films in the Fu Manchu series, before the reins slipped to Jesus Franco.
For television, he directed episodes of Ghost Squad, The Avengers, The Champions and Hammer House Of Horror, and he had further cinema successes with Psychomania (George Sanders vs. satanic bikers!), Hennessy, Callan and the Robert Powell version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, with its famously thrilling clock-dangling finale.
Powell also starred in Sharp’s final film, What Waits Below, in 1985, and Sharp’s last directing job for television was on the Barbara Taylor Bradford series An Act Of Will, in 1989.
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Director Don Sharp 1922-2011
Andrea Riseborough Joins Cruise’s Latest
Olga Kurylenko also aboard
Just as it seems to be having real trouble settling on a name, having tried out both Oblivion and Horizons without luck, the new film from Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinski has been taking a while to lock in female leads to star opposite Tom Cruise. Now Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko are signing on.
The film, as you might remember, finds Earth as a ruined, inhospitable wasteland and the human race living above it in the clouds. Cruise will play Jack (assuming his name hasn’t changed in the multiple script drafts), a soldier stationed on the planet who repairs drones that fight off alien life.
Jack’s one real connection to the people above is his partner and lover (Kurylenko) who remains in radio contact with him. She’s somewhat understandably disturbed when he meets and falls for a woman (Riseborough) who has somehow crash-landed on Earth. And that’s not the only change, as the new arrival forces him to change his worldview considerably.
Whatever it ends up being called, the project has been through many changes itself. Originally set up at Tron studio Disney, it was jettisoned when the studio bods became nervous that it wouldn’t fit with their family friendly brand. Universal swooped in to pick it up and Kosinski has overseen script work from Karl Gajdusek, William Monahan and, most recently, Michael Arndt. And though Jessica Chastain was in position to star as one of the women, she had to jump ship for one of the hundreds of other films she’s working on at any one time.
Assuming there are no more delays, Kosinski should be able to start shooting this thing in a couple of months, aiming for a July 2013 release date.
Riseborough has seen her career leap into gear of late, and can be seen this week in Madonna’s W.E. Kurylenko is still best known as Camille from Quantum Of Solace, but has also appeared in Centurion and Max Payne. She’s currently at work on Seven Psychopaths.
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Warners Wants To Visit Otherland
With producer Dan Lin
Sherlock Holmes producer Dan Lin just can’t stay away from fantasy worlds. Only yesterday we brought an update on his attempt to bring Jeff Smith’s graphic series Bone to the screen and now he’s part of the team getting Tad Williams’ sci-fi novel set Otherland adapted.
The story is set 100 years in the future and finds a group of unlikely heroes trying to evade an assassin while they venture through huge digital worlds. En route, they must uncover a conspiracy that threatens nothing less than the destruction of humanity.
Williams’ books hit US bookshelves between 1996 and 2001, with the plot spread across City Of Golden Shadow, River Of Blue Fire, Mountain Of Black Glass and Sea Of Silver Light.
With Warners executives hoping to turn them into a Pile Of Green Money, Lin has hired John Scott III – whose zombie script Maggie opened plenty of doors after it landed on the top 10 of 2011’s Black List – to get to work unpacking the plot. While nothing has yet been said about it, you can bet they’re all thinking franchise.
Lin is currently overseeing something a little more down to Earth, as he’s overseeing Ruben Fleischer’s work on Gangster Squad. But he’s also helping to set up Lego: The Piece Of The Resistance, which 21 Jump Street duo Chris Miller and Phil Lord are targeting as their next film. Scott, meanwhile has another high profile sci-fi adaptation keeping him busy: he’s been working on Isaac Asimov’s Caves Of Steel for Fox.
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Warners Wants To Visit Otherland