Graham King must be extremely thankful that Ben Affleck's
Argo is both a critical and commercial hit. Entering its 4th week of Domestic release, Argo is showing very strong legs and has earned $70M so far on a $44.5M production budget. And if, as seems likely, it scores multiple Awards nominations, that total should continue to climb.
Argo seems to be the lone bright spot in an otherwise bleak last 2 years for King's GK Films. In his latest tough break, Warner Bros just passed on one of his pet projects,
Jersey Boys. The film, based on the hit Broadway show was set to be directed Jon Favreau.
From The Playlist
News
by
Kevin Jagernauth
November 1, 2012 8:22 PM
How are studios making their decisions these days? Very, very carefully. That's certainly true over at
Warner Bros. who this year alone have iced "
Akira," are moving very tentatively on "
Arthur & Lancelot" (which seems to be on hold),
passed on the sprawling "
The Dark Tower" and
let go of "
The Imitation Game." And now they are sending a hit musical packing as well.
Jon Favreau's "
Jersey Boys" has been put into turnaround.
Based on the popular and acclaimed stage show, with a script by
John Logan ("
Hugo," "
Skyfall"), the musical tells the tale of
Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons,
documenting the rise and fall of the successful rock 'n' roll group of
the 1960s, one of the best-selling bands of all time, through their
music, including tracks like "Beggin," "December 1963 (Oh What A
Night)," "Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You." So
what's the deal? The show has been on Broadway since 2005, everyone
knows the tunes, so why is WB choosing not to make it?
According to
Variety,
the studio has reservations about the project's international appeal,
particularly as the movie would have required a big budget, something
they couldn't justify Favreau eyeing smaller names for the lead roles.
In recent weeks folks like
John Magaro ("
Not Fade Away"),
Dominic Cooper, Vincent Piazza, Paul Dano and
James Badge Dale were apparently under consideration, but no formal offers were made.
GK Films honchos
Graham King and
Tim Headington will be trying to keep it alive, with the former set to sit down with
Paramount and
20th Century Fox
tomorrow to see if they have any interest in taking it on (the project
was first developed at Sony before it moved to WB). But we'd reckon that
for the reasons above, it might be a hard sell. So we'll where this
goes, but it looks like the journey from 'Jersey' to the big screen, is
going to take a bit longer than expected.
