Indie director Debra Granik has begun development on her follow-up to the Oscar-nominated Ozarks-noir Winter’s Bone. In the midst of award season last winter, early reports claimed that her next effort would be an adaptation of Pippi Longstocking, but Granik told this reporter that though she’s an ardent fan of Pippi, she had no concrete plans for such a movie. Then as the Oscars neared, nominee Granik told The Telegraph (via The Playlist) that despite the fame the Oscars were bringing her way, she had no intention of moving into Hollywood’s mainstream, saying, “The stories I’m interested in telling would not be of interest to any deeply commercial system.”
It was here that Granik first mentioned her intentions to adapt the Russell Banks novel Rule of the Bone, which she cheekily added would be “the third part of my unofficial osteo-trilogy,” as it would follow her debut Down to the Bone, and Winter’s Bone. Yet Granik and her writing partner Anna Rosellini have been absent from the spotlight after the 2011 Oscars. So little news has sprung up – until The Playlist uncovered an two-month old interview with author Russell Banks at The Calgary Herald, who assured Granik’s Rule of the Bone adaptation is in the works, with Banks on board as an executive producer.
Rule of the Bone centers on Chappie, a 14-year-old boy who lives with his mother and abusive stepfather in an Upstate New York trailer park until he runs away and christens himself with a new name: Bone. It’s a coming-of-age story that involves bikers, pedophiles, an exiled Rastafarian, and a trip to Jamaica to meet Bone’s biological father. So basically, it sounds like something Granik and Rosellini will really be able to sink their teeth into.
As to when the film would go into production, last October Banks was hopeful that production on Rule of the Bone would begin by year’s end. However as no casting news has surfaced for this project, it seems the start date may have been pushed back. As to who Banks is hoping to see play his hardened teen protagonist, “We’re probably going to cast an unknown in the lead and then cast around him. When we get Bone cast, then we’ll work around him and have better-known actors, recognizable faces around him. We’ll be shooting it in Upstate New York and Jamaica.”
It’s a strategy that worked well for Granik on Winter’s Bone, scoring Oscar nominations for formerly undervalued indie actor John Hawkes and unknown ingénue Jennifer Lawrence, who was subsequently launched into stardom and cast in the much-anticipated action-adventure The Hunger Games. Assuming Rosellini, who suggested Hawkes for the role of the fearsome uncle Teardrop, and Granik are collaborating on Rule of the Bone, the cast they cull together should be extraordinary.
We’ll keep you updated as casting news as it develops.
Who would you like to see in Rule of the Bone?