Splice Director Vincenzo Natali Digs Tunnels
Harry Potterpublisher Barry Cunningham proudly declared that he had found the next world-shaking smash when he signed up authorsRoderick GordonandBrian Williamsand published their bookThe Highfield Mole, renaming itTunnels. It doesn’t seem that he was quite right – there’s threeTunnelsbooks so far with a fourth to come soon and I only know of one person who’s read any of them at all – but the first in theTunnelsseries, unsurprisingly just calledTunnelsitself, was at least was a very well received book by the press.
Today, Relativity Media announced that they have signedCubeandSplicedirectorVincenzo Natalito direct their big screen adaptation ofTunnels.
The book’s protagonist is a 14 year old Albino boy Will who follows his father into a series of subterranean tunnels. What he finds down below may seem superficially reminiscent ofThe City of Ember, or perhaps more soJourney to the Centre of the Earth, but it struck me as also having a lot in common withThe Village. To say more would be spoiler material, I think – and not for just one film.
The ‘villains’ of the book are the Styx, a kind of militia of religious guardians, if you’re able to imagine. They hate the people from our world, up above their tunnels, calling us Topsoilers. The Styx rule with an iron rod and routinely use fear to keep the underground colonists in line. There’s a solid and well defined idea at the heart of the story, and understanding the Styx is the key to it.
He’s a truly excellent filmmaker so I’ve got every confidence that Natali will do a great job with this picture and only hope the screenplay is up to snuff. ScriptwritersSimon SandquistandJoel Bergvalldirected the original Swedish version ofThe Invisibleand, more recently, the massively delayed Sarah Michelle Gellar moviePossession– which makes them 1 for 2, by common account. It’s a coin toss.
The film will be based upon only the first book in the series (not always the case – theSpiderwicknovels were all condensed into one film, theLemony Snicketpicture took in the first few volumes) but, of course, if it’s a hit, we’ll be seeing the rest before long, I’m sure. What I’m not too sure about is if the adaptation will keep the cliff-hanger ending of the book.The Golden Compasswisely ditched the teaser ending when it started to look unlikely that any follow-up would be coming along.
Alongside Peter Jackson’sstill-officially-only-rumoured film ofMortal Engines, it looks like there will be another strong adaptation of young-reader fiction stepping up to fill the void after thePotterpictures are all played out, and each of them from a hugely exciting director too.
