First of all: no. This is not a pope resignation drama.
In a story about debt refinancing at Lakeshore Entertainment (similar to MGM’s recent deal), comes an interesting bit of news: Mark Neveldine is following Robert Taylor’s lead and solo directing a film of his own.
The Nevldine/Taylor duo, aside from being the apple of Armand White’s eye, is responsible for the joyful cinematic anarchy that is the Crank franchise, as well as Gamer, which I have not yet brought myself to see. Their last joint venture was the under-appreciated Ghost Rider 2 though, which didn’t get nearly enough credit for being a freshly visualized, straightforward comic book movie in a time when many of the genre’s efforts are beginning to resemble Tetsuo at his most engorged and gross.
In any event, the two are taking time off from their partnership to do solo films, with Taylor taking on the Twisted Metal video game adaptation for Sony (which could as easily take place in the Crank universe as not). Neveldine however, is going a different route, signing on to the long-in-development horror film The Vatican Tapes, originally developed under Man On Wire director James Marsh. Revolving around “leaked” Vatican exorcism footage, it would seem to be a late-to-the-party leftover from a time when modern found footage horror was first becoming a thing. That genre, along with exorcism films in general, has been moving at a steady clip ever since.
It’s still not clear what each of these filmmakers have been uniquely bringing to their partnership. But, in the way that a completely immature, auto-carnage based video game adaptation seems like the proper playground for their sensibilities so too does a found footage horror film. Nobody has done bolder experiments with shitty cameras and 1st-person filmmaking than these guys, so I’m at least a little curious what Neveldine will do when set loose in this space all by his onesy.
Source | Variety (via BAD)