Director Zack Snyder, who can now officially be called a geek god and my own personal hero, is already planning his next move. According to an article in EW magazine, now that the intensely beautiful Watchmen is out there for comic geeks to love and obsess over, Snyder is prepping for his next project titled Sucker Punch. The film is based on a script that he wrote himself, and he describes it as a 1960’s-set action fantasy film. The plot revolves around a young woman named “Baby Doll” who’s been committed to an insane asylum, and fantasizes about escaping with the help of her fellow inmates. Okay… I love Zack Snyder now, but WTF?!?!?! Not that this wouldn’t be a good movie story, but I don’t see it as a 60’s-set action fantasy. At least, I didn’t, until I checked EW’s details against another source, and things started to make sense. This project has been in the works since 2007. Here is a little more complete synopsis:
“Sucker Punch is a movie about little girl who is trying to hide from the pain caused by her evil stepfather and lobotomy. She ends up in mental institution and while there she starts to imagine alternative reality. She plans to escape from that imaginary world but to do that she needs to steal five objects before she is caught by a vile man. The story is set in 1950’s. ”
So, it’s starting to make more sense. The announcement was originally made in March of ’07, but the project got shelved for Watchmen. Now that Snyder is done with that film, he has announced that his passion project will be the next one he works on. I have retrieved as much information from the original announcement as possible. Here is what Snyder had to say about the project:
“A while ago I had written a script for myself and there was a sequence in it that made me think, ‘How can I make a film that can have action sequences in it that aren’t limited by the physical realities that normal people are limited by, but still have the story make sense so it’s not, and I don’t mean to be mean, like a bullshit thing like Ultraviolet or something like that? And also, I was really inspired by the worlds of movies like Moulin Rouge, which is modern but at the same time timeless.”
The concept was described, by Snyder himself, as “Alice in Wonderland with machine guns.” WOW. That’s a pretty crazy and exciting concept. The Alice in Wonderland story has always intrigued me because of it’s potential for dark and twisted story-telling. Along that line of thinking, Tim Burton is doing his take on Alice, which is equally exciting, but a topic for another post… Sucker Punch is said to feature all kinds of cool craziness, including dragons, B-52 bombers and brothels! The project will look to feature a near entirely female cast, with Amanda Seyfried (if any of you had the brass to see that one, she was in it) in negotiations to star as Baby Doll. Reportedly there are also offers on the table for Vanessa Hudgens (the bastard trilogy of “High School Musical” films), Abbie Cornish (Stop-Loss), Evan Rachel Wood (The Wrestler) and Emma Stone (Superbad). Snyder joked that he did an all male cast with 300 so now he should do an all female cast. The project will begin production in the fall, with an October 2010 release date. Snyder is being given $100 million to make this movie. I’d bet he could get more, if he really wanted/needed it, because of his now huge name recognition.
The film itself sounds interesting to me. I might have been open to seeing this without Snyder’s involvement, but with it, you can count me in. All fanboy stuff aside, Zack Snyder is an amazing director with a keen eye and a propensity to produce beautiful and outlandish images throughout his films. I don’t think anyone could argue that he isn’t a good director at this point. Even though Snyder used Alice in Wonderland to give us all an idea as to what this film could be like, I can’t help but think about Big Fish. I remember those insane story flashbacks filled with over the top nonsense, and I just get the feeling that Sucker Punch will be very similar to Big Fish in that aspect. Dragons, guns, bombs, houses of prostitution AND an all female cast? Count me in!