Family reunion?
Ron Howard is in town doing pub for his upcoming film, the adaptation of Frost/Nixon. ComingSoon caught up with him and did an interview, where Opie Richie Mr. Howard commented on, amongst other things, his thoughts on the much-rumored Arrested Development film (Howard exec produced and did voiceovers for the celebrated but short-lived TV series).
Howard said:
“I really hope we do it. The reason there’s been so much back and forth is… well, for two reasons, is the business understanding coming from the studio side was not clear, so even though we were wanting to do it and said, ‘Yeah, maybe we could’ but things weren’t defined. I think that’s really come into focus in the last week or so. Mitch’s full-on commitment to not only write it but direct it is something he’s been wrestling with, he’s been launching a TV show at the same time, so he couldn’t let it really be at the forefront of his mind creatively. It is now. He seems very committed. We still don’t have a script. Yeah, he’s got some great ideas, and the cast seemed very excited about it and I certainly am. I’m very, very hopeful—more hopeful now than ever—that it’s really going to happen.”
Howard also spoke a little bit about Angels & Demons, the film of Dan Brown’s book that reappeared out of obscurity after the success of The Da Vinci Code. Howard noted that although Angels was written before Da Vinci, it is being treated as a sequel onscreen. He added:
“It is going to be different, but it has everything to do with the story,” he told us. “This literally is a ticking bomb story, and it’s very much about modernity clashing with antiquity and technology vs. faith, so these themes, these ideas are much more active whereas the other one lived so much in the past. The tones are just innately so different between the two stories. We also felt a lot more license to take liberties with this plot then we probably did, because this is a great movie story but it doesn’t carry with it the weight the ‘Da Vinci Code’ did for its readers. I’m hoping this is a really great entertainment.”
Read the whole interview with Howard here, along with a few words from his producing partner Brian Grazer on some other projects in the works.
