Beasts of the Southern Wild playwright and co-screenwriter Lucy Alibar has been hired to pen the latest adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel The Secret Garden, which Guillermo Del Toro will produce.
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Just one day after the Gotham Awards were held, the 28th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards are set with a particularly strong slate of nominees, led by Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook, and Ben Zeitlin’s Beast of the Southern Wild.
It’s amazing we’re now halfway through 2012, a year that has offered plenty in the way of both blockbuster films and the smaller, more intimate indie fare. Taking that into account, it seems only fitting to offer up something a long the lines of a best of/worst of post for the first half of 2012.
Originality is not something one can easily place in the same sentence with Hollywood these days. It’s one of the depressing facts about where the current state of filmmaking has taken us; remakes, sequels, and rip-offs dominate the landscape. This sad fact is part of what makes Beasts of the Southern Wild – the debut feature for Benh Zeitlin – so great.