If we didn’t know our colleagues in the film business as well as we do and the blinkered egotism and snobbery that motivates many of them, we might suspect that it would be harder and harder for execs to justify going to Cannes every year with the amount of equally weird announcements coming out of Comic-Con.    Comic-Con certainly smells a great deal like the fresh spring bullshit that wafts off the Croisette every May as reliably as the seasons themselves, and the stench grows stronger every year.  So why bother traveling to the French Riviera when San Diego is so close you can almost throw your assistant there?

After announcing Walter Hill’s bizarre remake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, which we wrote about a couple of days ago, it now appears that Hollywood is going to ignore the recent disaster that was Rock of Ages and is going to take a further gamble with two more film adaptations of Broadway musicals, Wicked and Jersey Boys.  Stephen Daldry, who disappointed last year with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, is in negotiations to direct the former for Disney, while Jon Favreau is apparently circling the latter, stretching his wings even further after creating such a monster franchise with Iron Man.  You’ve come a long way since Swingers, baby.

The only one at Tribe PFC who can bear musicals is Tyler Kimball, so we’ll leave them for him to cover if they ever get made, and we frankly hope they don’t.  We don’t think our resident Jersey boy and rocker Eric Baker will be able to take the torture, even though Favreau is one of the few directors in Hollywood who has a delicate, masterful touch when it comes to graceful, middlebrow comedy.  His films are as gleefully thrilling as those gourmet sandwiches from a boutique chain, you know, like that roast chicken breast and prosciutto with an almond pesto sauce on toasted ciabatta.  And we have no idea where we are going with that analogy.

Jon, to quote Swingers,

“You’re so money, and you don’t even know it.  You know what you are?  You’re like a big bear with claws and fangs… And she’s just like this little bunny just cowering in the corner.”

Just kill that bunny thought, brother.  You can do better.  It’s more important to keep that filmography trash-free.  Do that other project, whichever it is.  Yeah, that one.

Peace.