-
A few nights ago I was on the red carpet at the world premiere of Ron Howard’s Inferno in Florence. In case you’re wondering why Florence, the city plays a large role in the latest Dan Brown adaptation and I’m sure that’s the reason Sony held the big press junket for the film in the Italian city.
Anyway, while on the carpet I managed to get a few minutes with Ron Howard. Since I spoke to him earlier that day about Inferno at the press junket (look for that interview week of release) I decided to use my time to ask about a few other things like who he trusts for honest feedback, the status of his National Geographic series Genius which is a ten-part installment about Albert Einstein, and I also got updates on what he’s working on now which includes Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi novel Seveneves.
For fans of Neil Gaiman, it seems like The Graveyard Book is one of those projects stuck in development hell. A little over four years ago, Disney picked up the book in a bidding war for director Henry Selick (Coraline) to direct, but then they dropped the project four months later. About five months after that, Ron Howard was linked to the project but it’s been quiet ever since. With Howard mentioning the adaptation to me as a possible future film, it seems like we might yet see this movie after all. For those not familiar with The Graveyard Book, it’s a one-off take on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book which replaces the boy raised by wolves with a young orphan raised by ghosts in a graveyard. The children’s story was a winner of both the Carnegie and Newbery medals, marking the first time a book achieved such a feat.
In addition, Howard mentioned Seveneves as a possible future project. If you aren’t familiar with this one, you should be, because it’s sound very cool and it’s got Apollo 13 screenwriter William Broyles Jr. adapting it for Howard and producer Brian Grazer. As Adam said when we first reported on it, “The novel, which hit shelves last year, begins with humanity in dire straits as a catastrophic event renders Earth uninhabitable. The world’s nations subsequently band together to devise a plan to ensure humanity’s survival, which involves sending pioneers into the far reaches of outer space. But then the book jumps 5,000 years into the future, with the progeny of these pioneers now spanning seven distinct races and three billion strong. They set out on an ambitious journey of their own—a return to Earth.” Like I said, it sounds cool.
Check out the interview above and look for more red carpet interviews soon.