Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie in pre-production

WDWHound

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This film is being made for Disney by Spyglass. Disney is the distrubitor - essenitally the people who will market the movie - and the bank. All of the real creative work will be done outside.

Some good news, word indicates they may have cast a great actor for the role of Arthur Dent. He is Martin Freeman and played Tim on the brilliant, but extremely British show, 'The Office'. The buzz on this project remains pretty good.
 
Thanks for the info AV. Glad to hear the project seems to be going well. I'm actually kind of glad that Disney is not involved in the actual making of the movie. I shudder to think of what Eisner could do to the late Douglas Adams' material were he to decide to become personally involved.
 
Disney isn't directly making the film, but they can still get their fingers into it through the horrible Hollywood practice called "notes".

Because Disney, or any studio, is the one fronting the cash and is responsible to get the movie into theaters, and people into the theaters to see the thing - they get to review what's going on. The filmmakers will submit scripts, pre-production plans, "dailies" (the raw footage as its being shot every day) and the rough and final edits of the film.

The studio then reserves the right to offer opinions on the work and make suggestions on changes they would like to be made. Because of the internal politics of Hollywood, no one wants to be seen as requiring changes for the most part, so these go by the euphemism of "notes". Who gets to make "notes", and whether someone has to take them seriously or not, is a prime area of power politics all over town. Generally speaking, it comes down to a battle of wills between the filmmakers and the suits trying to get a commercial product.

Filmmakers with a proven record and/or clot can usually talk themselves out of notes; filmmakers just starting out or working under the shadow a previous bomb have ask for a studio note to decide if they will have latte or cappuccino in the morning. On the studio side a suit with confidence in the filmmaker's ability won't issue a lot of notes, but a suit with a lot of confidence in his ability as a filmmaker will issue more notes than an orchestra.

Eisner has a reputation for being erratic in movies just likes he's erratic in the theme parks. Certain projects will simply catch his fancy and he'll delve deeply into the detail of the film. Everyone's heard stories about him going through scripts and re-writing jokes, or passing judgement on costume design or lighting. Other projects, even big budget projects, he doesn't know nor care they exist. It's been said he was all over Treasure Planet and the upcoming Home on the Range - but knew almost nothing of Lilo and Stich until just before its release.

As for Hitchhiker's, I really hope he finds a hobby and stays away.
 

Oh man, I've been waiting for the film version of Hitchhiker's since I was in high school in the mid-80's. I really hope it finally happens and that it turns out well. I'm crossing my fingers. ::yes::
 
Anyone see the series that ran in the UK?

You can download the episodes on Kaaza.

It was pretty good.

Did Disney have part in that?
 
Originally posted by Richyams
Anyone see the series that ran in the UK?

You can download the episodes on Kaaza.

It was pretty good.

Did Disney have part in that?
Rich, As far as I know, the TV and radio productions of Hitchhikers were BBC productions without any involvement from Disney. I'm not sure how and when Disney got the movie rights, but I believe it happened well after the TV series was made.
 
This made my day. I saw all of TLOTR and Starwars movies at midnight opening day with my husband, now I can make him go see my favorite sci-fi/fantasy movie with me. I need to reread the books again.:D
 
I seem to recall some information about all the many studios the film rights had gone through in the book "Salmon of Doubt", which is a compilation of Douglas' writing, including what existed of his final book (named the same as the title of this book) after his untimely death. :( Hopefully, Disney and Spyglass will hold true to the books (as much as possible) and make a worthwhile movie. There are legions of people out there who know where their towels are and they aren't going to want to see Douglas' work presented poorly. Still crossing my fingers... ::yes::
 








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