Footage that was shot by a film crew in Wuhan as the coronavirus emerged will end up in a documentary feature by Starlight Culture Entertainment Group.
Photo: Starlight Culture Entertainment GroupHollywood is gearing up to explore the origins of the planet’s most-reviled villain: the coronavirus.
SK Global Entertainment, the Los Angeles-based production company behind “Crazy Rich Asians,” has enlisted Academy Award-winning screenwriter Charles Randolph with the aim of crafting a cinematic tale that explores the harrowing weeks in China just before Covid-19 exploded into a global pandemic.
SK Global’s co-chief executives, John Penotti and Charlie Corwin, said they are in talks with potential Chinese production partners, which would play a key role in making the film. The filmmakers say they hope to develop a movie that could begin filming in China by early 2021.
Securing permission to shoot—and release—the film there could be a challenge, given lingering political tensions over the nation’s initial response to the outbreak, and its historical sensitivity to being portrayed in an even mildly critical light. China is the world’s second-largest box-office market behind the U.S.
Mr. Randolph—best known for co-writing the Oscar-winning screenplay for “The Big Short”—plans to steer clear of political debate and instead zero in on the personal tales of first responders in China as they confronted the novel coronavirus’s terrifying eruption.
“How the virus got from a bat cave into the city of Wuhan, that’s something we’re not going to have the answer to for a while,” Mr. Randolph said. “It’s more of a medical drama than a pandemic thriller.”
Mr. Randolph is conducting extensive research for the project, which he is also set to direct, a first for him. In addition to poring over local and foreign news reports, he has studied the differences between American and Chinese emergency rooms while SK Global provides additional research.
“We’ve been translating a voluminous amount of articles and videos,” Mr. Penotti said.
Mr. Randolph said there is significant human drama to be mined from the early days of the outbreak, as Chinese doctors and nurses attempted to mount a defense against the mysterious illness. “It’s one thing to fight a monster,” he said. “It’s another thing to fight a monster in the dark.”
SK didn’t say how much the production will cost.
Mr. Randolph said part of his movie will be in Mandarin, fitting with SK’s broader strategy of producing local-language content in potential growth markets. “We have built a company specifically to focus on those places in the world where that proposition is its most exponential,” Mr. Corwin said.
SK, co-founded by apparel billionaire Sidney Kimmel and financier Robert Friedland, has mined international headlines for scripts in the past. The company is working on a series for Netflix Inc. based on the dramatic rescue of a dozen soccer players and their assistant coach from a cave in Thailand. Last year, Netflix released the first season of another SK-produced series, “Delhi Crime,” which examines the aftermath of a 2012 gang rape in India that attracted international attention. As the company nears completing the Hindi- and English-language show’s second season, Mr. Corwin says SK is considering buying studio space in India, as the company eyes producing more material there.
SK’s coronavirus project may end up the first high-profile feature film to get under way, but it won’t be the only movie set in Wuhan.
For its documentary, Starlight’s crew focused on health-care workers and local residents in Wuhan.
Photo: Starlight Culture Entertainment GroupStarlight Culture Entertainment Group, a Chinese firm that invests in Hollywood movies, is wrapping up a documentary feature depicting the early days of the outbreak. By chance, the company had a crew stationed in Wuhan before the virus outbreak. The filmmakers had planned to make a movie on Wuhan’s local culture but quickly pivoted as the virus started to spread.
With cameras in tow and covered in protective suits, Starlight’s crew followed about 10 people, focusing on health-care workers and local residents. With 300 hours of footage at its disposal, the company plans to produce a two-hour documentary feature called “Wuhan! Wuhan!”
More documentaries are on their way. CNN Worldwide development executive Amy Entelis said her division has been inundated recently with pitches for projects about the pandemic.
Shooting a feature film in China often requires script approval from government officials, who in the past have exhibited sensitivity about how the country is portrayed, even in films that aren’t intended to be seen as realistic.
Several years ago, in the hopes of appeasing Chinese censors, ViacomCBS Inc.’s Paramount Pictures altered its 2013 zombie apocalypse film “World War Z,” removing a reference of China as a possible source of the fictional outbreak. China still decided against letting the movie play there.
China and much of the world have been at odds over how and where the coronavirus originated. The origin of the killer pathogen has especially been a source of intense friction between the U.S. and China.
“We know this pandemic has become politically charged, and we will have to navigate that,” SK’s Mr. Corwin said.
Like the SK executives, Mr. Randolph hopes he can film the movie in China. But he says he won’t tolerate a lot of government meddling to win approval.
“I would imagine that any pushback we have will mean we go elsewhere,” he said. “We’re not interested in having a lot of outside political influence on our work. That’s not really what we do.”
Related Video
STAY INFORMED
Get a coronavirus briefing six days a week, and a weekly Health newsletter once the crisis abates: Sign up here.
Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
"movie" - Google News
June 27, 2020 at 03:22AM
https://ift.tt/3eE91K6
Coronavirus Outbreak Movie Coming From ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Producers - The Wall Street Journal
"movie" - Google News
https://ift.tt/35pMQUg
https://ift.tt/3fb7bBl
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Coronavirus Outbreak Movie Coming From ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Producers - The Wall Street Journal"
Post a Comment