My brain tells me to run very far away from this story but my heart is yearning for it to be true. Put it this way - if I could sacrifice an overtly Christian police officer in Christoper Lee/Wicker Man fashion to help appease the Gods and make this unlikely rumour turn true, I would do it in a heart beat.
Pajiba's very reliable insider source (dubbed "Hollywood Cog") says
Quentin Tarantino has sensationally become attached to 20th Century Fox's
The Shadow, their adaptation of the 1930's pulp mag/radio superhero serial that
they acquired from Sony earlier this year. According to the source, Tarantino will re-write
Siavash Farahanis screenplay which last we heard was still being produced by life-long Shadow fan
Sam Raimi who has been trying to crack this movie for the past four years. So what do we make of this? In Hans Landa fashion, let's sniff out the evidence and see if we can find a rat;
On the plus side that this might be true... The Shadow resides in a world that would completely be up Tarantino's alley. He is clearly a fan of pulp fiction (
obviously) and most recently has had a liking for period thrillers having received his first Oscar nomination in 15 years with
Inglourious Basterds. Over the past year, Tarantino has spoken enthusiastically about adapting the pulpy material of
the Len Deighton novels and has also suggested he would be up for making
a 30's gangster picture. The Shadow is also a more outrageous cousin to James Bond, a project at one time he pitched to EON Productions to make as a Ian Fleming faithful, period, pulp adaptation.
Writing/directing The Shadow would allow Tarantino to go full out film noir, a genre he has flirted rigorously and elements of which are in almost every one of his movies and is a superhero character with a massive free license for him to brainstorm his eccentricies. Except the character names and the basic concept - there's huge room for Tarantino to play with here - a chance to include imagnative villains, absurd situations, expansive locales and all kinds of the beautiful women in distress. All those would in some ways describe his last movie.
On the negative side that this might be true... Our brain keeps telling us to be skeptical. As much as we love The Shadow, he is a character that exists in a completely different time for anymore more than a half-serious, Hellboy-style adaptation and would Tarantino really be interested in telling a story about a superhero who has the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him. Tarantino has been adamant for a while that he would never again direct someone elses material, and it's kinda odd to think of him picking up on Sam Raimi's scraps when he has never previously jumped aboard an already in development picture that he hasn't birthed. As far as we know, there isn't a past relationship between Raimi and Tarantino or indeed Tarantino/Fox either, so it would seem odd that the script ended up in his hands. But, then, maybe he just flipped for it and over a couple of days got excited about what we would do with it before he ultimately passes on it. Who knows? I imagine we'll find out soon.