Does Danny Boyle have the taste for monsters again? The director re-imagined the zombie genre with his inventive “28 Days Later…” and his ambitious stage version of “Frankenstein” (with a score by Underworld and leads Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternating the roles of Dr. Frankenstein and his creation) already in previews in the U.K. but his next movie project may find him mixing it up with the supernatural once again.
Talking with Kris Tapley at InContention, writer Simon Beaufoy — who has collaborated with Boyle on their Oscar-winner “Slumdog Millionaire” and the Oscar-nominated “127 Hours” — reveals he’s been working on a script about werewolves that Danny Boyle may direct with producer Chris Colson also on board.
“If I write it well enough, he’ll direct it,” Beaufoy told BBC America. “It’s a very extraordinary mix of gangland Los Angeles — Compton, the Watts Towers area — really, really rough, a lot of shootings. And the difference with this particular piece of work is that these gangs can shape-shift at will into packs of dogs. So it’s a police procedural mixed with a werewolf film. If you get it wrong, it’s a disaster. If you get right, it will be extraordinary.”
The film is based on the lengthy poem “Sharp Teeth” by Toby Barlow about a trio of werewolves in East L.A. Tapley describes the project as “Boyz In The Hood” if Doughboy and his crew turned into beasts at night. Beaufoy has been doing research for the script by taking ridealongs with LAPD officers in Compton and Watts, and even talking to some of the people arrested during the shifts he’s been on. “It’s brilliant seeing a different part of L.A.,” he added. “When you’re involved with the movie industry and you go to awards ceremonies you miss out on what 90 per cent of what L.A. is, which is hard-working people, lots of unemployment, lots of really difficult social issues.”
Sounds pretty damn fascinating and an interesting take on the genre, so we’ll be curious to see how this develops. Of course, the script is far from a certainty for Boyle’s next film project and its likely one of many he’s considering. For now, he’s busy on the British stage with “Frankenstein” and also has the London Olympics opening ceremony on the horizon but you can read a fuller description of “Sharp Teeth” from Amazon below:
Barlow’s gut-wrenching, sexy debut, a horror thriller in verse, follows three packs of feral dogs in East L.A. These creatures are in fact werewolves, men and women who can change into canine form at will (Dog or wolf? More like one than the other/ but neither exactly). Lark, the top dog in one of the packs who’s a lawyer in human form, has a master plan that may involve taking over the city from the regular humans. Anthony Silvo, a dogcatcher and normally a loner, finds himself falling in love with a beautiful and mysterious woman (Standing on four legs in her fur,/ she is her own brand of beast). A strange small man and his giant partner play tournament bridge and are deep into the drug trade. A detective, Peabody, investigates several puzzling dog-related murders. The irregular verse form with its narrative economies proves an excellent vehicle to support all these disparate threads and then tie them together in the bittersweet conclusion.
