Screen Daily reports that production has begun on Joe Dante's Roger Corman biopic,
The Man With the Kaleidoscope Eyes:
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Joe Dante set to direct a long-gestating biopic about legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman.
Corman is the founder of New World Pictures and the man behind such cult classics as The Masque Of The Red Death (1989), Little Shop of Horrors (1960) and Death Race 2000 (1975).
The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes will be produced by Said Ben Said of SBS Productions.
Set in Hollywood in the late 1960s, the film is billed as a comedy. Corman is to make a cameo as himself and has given the project his full blessing.
SBS is likely to handle sales as well as to produce the film, which will be financed through European sources.
After initial reports, the news was confirmed by the film's co-writer Tim Lucas on his Facebook page:
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Just got an email link from Joe Dante. Subject line: "It looks like the secret is out." I guess that's as much confirmation as I'll get!
also...
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As my co-writer Charlie Largent sez, "YEE HAW!" We wrote our first draft of the script 10 years ago in a whirlwind 12 days, ping-ponging email drafts back and forth. It all started when I watched the DVD supplements for THE TRIP and realized, "Hey, there's a movie here." I've never collaborated with anyone more smoothly and easily: I would write till I got tired, then Charlie would edit what I did and continue on likewise, then I would edit and continue on, then he would edit and continue on, etc. It was the first thing I wrote after finishing MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK and it was rejuvenating to knock off something in less than two weeks when BAVA had taken all of 32 years! We overnighted it to Joe, who had no idea it was coming. I think he was in the midst of making LOONEY TUNES BACK IN ACTION; he said he'd come home miserable and exhausted, but when he opened the package and saw what we had done, he couldn't put it down. He agreed to direct it by phone the next day. What a long, strange TRIP it's been! So happy we'll all be able to do this for Roger!
Well, this has shot up to the top of my most anticipated upcoming films list. Wonderful news - this is exactly like the kind of project I've been waiting for Dante to tackle since I first discovered and fell in love with his work as a kid and early teen (and continue to love to this day - recently re-watched
The Howling and it holds up wonderfully). I love this director and I couldn't be happier he's in this sixties cinema wheelhouse again for the first time since
Matinee.