Scorsese is Wedge'd out of HUGO CABRET

By Matt Holmes / June 25, 2011

GK Films, Johnny Depp's Infinitum Nihil and Warner Bros. couldn't wait forever for Martin Scorsese to get round to filming their hotly anticipated kids fantasy adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The Oscar winning director was linked with the movie last February but Scorsese has made it clear he is interested in other projects, so the studios have looked elsewhere and hired Ice Age helmer Chris Wedge. He will direct from a script by John Logan (The Aviator, Sweeney Todd)...

King and Infinitum Nihil's Christi Dembrowski will produce the live-action film, which centers on an orphaned boy who secretly lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station and looks after the clocks. He gets caught up in a mystery adventure when he attempts to repair a mechanical man.

The book has some terrific reviews and is reviewed by once such Amazon customer as...

It's part graphic novel, part mystery, part coming-of-age. There are echoes of Pinocchio but with a twist as here it is a lonely boy building an automaton father figure. This is a timeless book about, among other things, time. This is a book for the ages, and a book for all ages. The story, the artwork, the writing style, the overall design, all first rate parts of a greater whole, like the precisely crafted mechanism of a fine Swiss clock.

The studio hopes to begin filming in the fall.