There was a time four or five years ago that I became convinced the legendary
John Carpenter had retired. The confused horror/sci-fi
Ghost of Mars in 2001 seemed to be the final nail in the coffin of a 70's and 80's great who for years had kept wowing audiences only by how worse his next movie was from the shocker that came before it. A very different kind of amazed reaction to those who saw
Halloween, The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13 or
They Live during their first runs. It was sad to see someone who you knew was so talented just creatively run out of steam. Last year though, in something of a surprise -
Carpenter announced his long overdue return to cinema with The Ward - a ghostly thriller written by a couple of Indie writers that would star up and coming scream queen
Amber Heard (a million miles away from a Jamie Lee Curtis type!) alongside beauties
Lyndsy Fonseca (
Kick-Ass) and
Danielle Panabaker (
Friday the 13th). The movie is now in post-production and will open this September in the U.S and I think I speak for everyone when I say we are rooting for him to knock it out of the ball park. And it would seem this isn't a one time only deal... According to
Variety, Carpenter has been hired to direct an adaptation of
John Marks' 2007 novel Fangland, which has had
Hilary Swank attached for the past three years at DAS Films and Blumhouse Prods.
Swank would play Evangeline Harker, an assistant producer for the t.v. show The Hour (Marks is a former producer on
60 Minutes) who travels to Transylvania to interview a known crime lord who abducts and infects her. She re-emerges some months later not remembering exactly what happened to her, but her life has undoubtedly changed forever. If it sounds familiar then you are correct, it is basically a contemporary take on Bram Stoker's
Dracula, and is very much a vampirish tale. Carpenter's first I guess since
Vampires in 1998. Though this doesn't feel like the usual Carpenter fare. The novel feels like a
Dracula-lite tale for the masses (e-mails replace the Stoker narrative device of diary entries, yawn!), but who would have put money on Carpenter as a mainstream director these days, so that's probably just a mis-reading of the situation from me. Sadly
Mark Wheaton, who is credited on the AWFUL screenplay for the
Friday the 13th remake, has adapted Marks' novel. Hopefully a hands-on Carpenter re-write will be in the offing with him now on board.