Way back when I had a chance to sit down with Matthew Vaughn, and he talked about how he wanted to direct an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. Here’s what he had to say back when his gangster film and directorial debut, Layer Cake, was being released in the States:
Vaughn: I’m doing a feature with Neil at the moment. Neil is a really good friend of mine, a lovely bloke. The way it came about was that there was a book of his that I wanted, called Stardust. Neil and I are making Stardust as a feature together. Neil wanted to make a short – again, we got on and trusted each other. I said I would do, I put the money into it. We’re working on the script at the moment, it’s going to be a good film.
Q: What’s the status of it?
Vaughn: That’s the thing when I say working on it. I’ve written the treatment, and I’m not a writer so I’m trying to find the right writer. It’s a four week job of them taking what I’ve – I’ve taken the story and changed it a bit, put a new third act on. It’s going to be cool, it’s going to be like Princess Bride meets Midnight Run.
Q: Are you using Charles Vess’ illustrations at all?
Vaughn: You know your stuff! Yeah, I have them all – I have some limited editions that Charles sent me. The way he paints is very Victorian, in a way, and the way I want it to be is more modern. I think people have a problem where they say, “Oh it’s a fairy tale, let’s shoot it in a fairy tale way.” I want to shoot it in a far more modern, grittier manner.
Shortly after this interview Vaughn had to drop out of directing X3 (his reasons were quite good, actually), and not much has been heard from him since. Now he’s in final talks with Paramount to make Stardustthere. He ended up finishing the script with writing partner Jane Goldman, by the way.