Unfinished Stanley Kubrick film ‘Lunatic at Large’ to go into production this year
Stanley Kubrick making A Clockwork Orange in 1971. Photograph- Allstar Picture Library:Alamy
Unfinished Stanley Kubrick film ‘Lunatic at Large’ to go into production this year
Words: Dylan Murphy
It comes over 20 years after the death of the acclaimed director.
Variety has revealed that producers Galen Walker and Bruce Hendricks have acquired the rights to the unfinished Stanley Kubrick project Lunatic at Large.
The pair intend to begin filming the project this year, adapting Kubrick’s idea into a feature film. It comes after filmmaker Terry Gilliam said he was due to begin work on the adaptation before the global pandemic scuppered his plans.
According to reports, the idea for Lunatic at Large was a product of a 70-page treatment and Kubrick idea that James B. Harris commissioned from crime writer Jim Thompson.
Now, the two producers intend to begin production in autumn this year.
Not much is known about the film so far, but it has been described as a film-noir thriller. According to slashfilm an early description (which given the new adaptation may now be dated) says:
“Set in New York in 1956, it tells the story of Johnnie Sheppard, a former carnival worker with serious anger-management issues, and Joyce, a nervous, attractive barfly he picks up in a Hopperesque tavern scene. There’s a newsboy who flashes a portentous headline, a car chase over a railroad crossing with a train bearing down, and a romantic interlude in a spooky, deserted mountain lodge. The great set piece is a nighttime carnival sequence in which Joyce, lost and afraid, wanders among the tents and encounters a sideshow’s worth of familiar carnie types: the Alligator Man, the Mule-Faced Woman, the Midget Monkey Girl, the Human Blockhead, with the inevitable noggin full of nails.”
In a statement Galen Walker said:
“The opportunity to bring a Stanley Kubrick project to the screen after so many years is a dream come true.”
“We look forward to making a film in keeping with his unique style and vision.”
Hendricks also spoke on the film saying:
“Stanley Kubrick was an enormous influence on so many directors, and we are honored that the Kubrick Estate has entrusted us with one of his original ideas.”
We’ll keep you updated with more as it happens.
Elsewhere, fans are split over the trailer for a new studio Ghibli movie.
