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When it comes to classic novels being adapted into movies, this particular combination sounds like the stuff of dreams: Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind‘s Charlie Kaufman is said to be working on a screenplay based on Kurt Vonnegut‘s 1969 classic Slaughterhouse-Five for director Guillermo del Toro.
According to an interview with The Daily Telegraph — not yet online but quoted extensively here — del Toro said that he and Kaufman “talked for about an hour and a half and came up with a perfect way of doing the book,” adding that “the idea of the Tralfamadorians [being] ‘unstuck in time,’ where everything is happening at the same time” was what he wanted to do, without going any further into details.
RELATED: Guillermo del Toro Rallies Fans to Counter ‘Pacific Rim’s’ Negative Press
In Vonnegut’s novel, the Tralfamadorians not only abduct the main character, Billy Pilgrim, but go on to teach him about the true nature of time — that each moment exists simultaneously — leaving him unable to control his own nonchronological travels through time as a result. Exactly what del Toro means by saying that the pessimistic Tralfamadorians are key to his intentions isn’t exactly clear, outside of the assumption that the movie itself won’t unfold in a straightforward manner … which, let’s be honest, isn’t what we’d expect from a Kaufman/del Toro collaboration anyway.
We shouldn’t expect this potential masterpiece anytime soon, though, del Toro said. “[Universal] will make it when it’s my next movie,” he told The Telegraph, “but how can I commit to it being my next movie until there’s a screenplay? Charlie Kaufman is a very expensive writer!”
If it’s a monetary issue more than anything, let’s be honest: We already have a solution for that. Forget your Veronica Marses, people: Here’s a movie project worth Kickstarting.
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