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| 03 November 2008 | Steve Carr Picks Up Sherman's March
Comedy based on 1986 documentary
Source: The Hollywood Reporter |
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Director Steve Carr is set to turn the 1986 documentary, Sherman's March, into a feature-length comedy.
The documentary, directed by Ross McElwee, was to have been a look at the effects of General William Tecumseh Sherman's march through the South during the American Civil War. But when McElwee got dumped just before filming began, he shifted focus onto his own personal life, with the documentary eventually telling the story of the women in his life.
The result was a success, winning one of the first grand jury prizes at the Sundance Film Festival. It also had a profound effect on Carr, who saw it when he was growing up, and couldn't get it out of his head. And, even though he moved onto broad comedies like Daddy Day Care, Next Friday and the forthcoming Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Carr harboured a desire to turn Sherman's March into a film.
That desire was realised when he met McElwee during filming of Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which stars Kevin James. "It took four or five meetings for me to convince him that I wasn't some fast-talking Hollywood guy and to let me get the feature film rights," Carr told the Hollywood Reporter. "I love making big studio movies and doing broad comedy where people get hit in the crotch, but this is another side of me. It's more cerebral and introspective."
To prove it, Carr's take on Sherman's March will keep the tone of the original, but transplant it into a small, quirky comedy, with the likes of Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine mentioned as templates. The project is currently out to writers. | | Chris Hewitt |
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