If you’re one of the seventeen people who sit around wondering when Billy Bob Thornton will direct another movie, you’re in luck. The Playlist reports he’s planning to direct Dwight Yoakam and Dennis Quaid in Jayne Mansfield’s Car, based on an original script by Thornton.
Billy Bob hasn’t directed a film in ten years, and it’s not really surprising, given that his last effort behind the camera was a “dark comedy” called Daddy And Them, which starred Thornton, Laura Dern and Diane Ladd and which no one saw. Since it’s not even Playing Instantly on Netflix (which an astounding number of terrible movies are), can one blame Thornton for spending these last ten years divorcing Angelina Jolie, focusing on his music, and taking paycheck roles like Mr. Woodcock?
Since Thornton has proven himself a marvelous actor in the past, I guess we could forgive him. Still, his debut film as a director, the still-amazing Sling Blade, showed a promise the ex-Mr. Jolie has yet to fulfill. Now we have some signs of life from a project we first heard about last year. This from country-star-turned-respectable-actor Yoakam:
“Billy wrote a new screenplay titled ‘Jayne Mansfield’s Car,’” Yoakam told the San Luis Obispo. “And it’s supposed to star myself, Billy Bob and Dennis Quaid as three brothers in 1969, who are ex-World War II vets wrestling with their own families and lives on a large cattle ranch in western Alabama.”
Fair enough. But I don’t think I’m alone in hoping we might get a glimpse of the car Jayne Mansfield died in. Or maybe a re-creation of the accident. Or maybe anything else but that plot Yoakam outlined. A visual like this, for instance:
Anyway. Thornton also called it a “…comedy drama, and it’s about human relationships. This one deals a lot with how different generations view war and also it examines the randomness of life and death.” There was also talk that this project could re-unite The Godfather co-stars Robert Duvall and James Caan, but that one’s a long shot.
Would you like to see Billy Bob Thornton direct a movie that’s actually good? Or would you rather see Bad Santa 2?