Random Movie Question: Match Director to Film Franchise

There’s been some interesting news as of late. Some directors have been put to film franchises that I would not have immediately associated. For example, Guillermo del Toro will be directing the adaptation of The Hobbit, with Peter Jackson producing. It’s an interesting choice, because del Toro is such a visually simulating director. If you’ve seen Pan’s Labyrinth or the Hellboy movies, you know what I mean. I can’t wait to see what he does with Smaug.

Then there’s the latest news over the weekend that Kenneth Branaugh is in talks to direct the Thor film in Marvel Comic’s Avenger series (connecting Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, and Captain America). You may remember Branaugh from HP and the Chamber of Secrets (he played Gilderoy Lockhart) or from the number of Shakespeare’s plays that he’s directed for the big screen, including Hamlet, Henry V (which I need to see), and Much Ado About Nothing (tied as my favorite Shakespearen movie with Ian McKellen’s Richard III). He’s an interesting choice, certainly not one that I would have identified as a “comic book movie” director. Hopefully, he will bring the gravitas that Patrick Stewart and McKellen brought to the X-Men series (at least the first two films in that series).

A couple of weeks ago, “Moriarty” from Ain’t It Cool News gave an intriguing opinion (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38353) about the next Superman movie. He thought that it would be interesting for the Coen brothers to direct the next movie – putting the ultimate man-without-guile into their O Brother and Hudsucker universe. Now, I don’t know if this is a good idea or not. Moriarty is basing it on a particular Superman story of which I’m not familiar. But that suggestion got me thinking, and that leads to this week’s RMQ:

What director do you think would make an interesting pairing with a particular story or film franchise?

The first thought I had for this was that Alfonso Cuarón would be perfect for Ender’s Game. If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s a sort of combination of Starship Troopers with Lord of the Flies. The main actors are children, and I think that Cuarón has demonstrated (with HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban) that he understands the relational dynamics between children, at least better than any of the other HP directors.

I’d also love to see Martin Scorese’s King Lear as a mob movie (like how Kirosawa brought the story into feudal Japan in Ran). With DeNiro in the title role, it would really be interesting from the perspective of the role of women (Lear’s 3 daughters as mob captains?) in contemporary Italian-American culture. Another Shakespeare film that could be interesting would be Wes Anderson’s As You Like It. There are enough off-beat melancholy characters in the play that it would fit perfectly in Anderson’s universe (Bill Murray as Jacques, the character who gives the “All the world’s a stage” speech, would be great).

What do you think? Should Spielberg direct the WWII-era Captain America origin story? Or Tom Hanks? Or Ron Howard? What about P.T. Anderson directing The Catcher in the Rye, or Charlie Kaufmann/Michel Gondry taking a crack at the oft-failed Don Quixote story? How long will we wait until Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow) does a James Brown biopic with Eddie Murphy in the lead role?

Throw caution (and studio’s budgets) to the wind and come up with your most interesting pairings.