It’s not that I don’t like the screenplays of David Benioff. I do. It’s just that last week I reread The 25th Hour and it’s so good (and some of the short stories in When The Nines Roll Over are just fantastic). There aren’t enough good young novelists these days, if you ask me, and while I enjoy seeing them getting paid – Benioff has written the adaptation of The 25th Hour, Troy, Wolverine, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Kite Runner – I also like seeing them write books.
The latest script that Benioff has been tapped to write is a remake of the 2004 Dutch* film Brothers for Columbia. It’s about two brothers, one of whom goes off to fight in Afghanistan while the black sheep brother stays at home and takes care of his bro’s wife and kids. It’s timely, at least, even if I still frown upon the general concept of remaking new foreign films for US audiences. Ah well, at least it’s a movie that will tackle current events. I have long had this fear of Hollywood ignoring our current wars, and people looking back ten years later and wondering why we never had a cinematic discussion about them.
* Reader Papa Quagmire writes in: "Just wanted to correct a little typo. Brothers is a
Danish film." I knew that, Papa Quagmire, I just didn’t want to piss off our large readership from Iran.