IP Picks🔎: ‘Palm Springs’ Meets ‘Happy Death Day’ In This Fantastic Time-Loop Thriller➕ A ’90s-set gritty New York crime story, and a suburban drama with shades of ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ that’s perfect for TV
Welcome to The Optionist. Thanks for reading along with me. Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper are going to make a movie about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Penn plans to direct from his own script, and Cooper is in talks to play a cop who gets caught up in the insurrection. Of note: This is being set up at Warner Bros., likely soon to be owned by the, umm, shall we say Trump-friendly Ellisons. Interesting. I have long thought there should be a J6 movie, and Penn is one of the few filmmakers with the right combination of politics and indifference to Hollywood’s uneasiness about tackling hot-button subjects to take this on. Per Deadline, this is described as focused on “the subject’s early journey, one that led to him later becoming an American hero in the eyes of many. It’s not a ‘January 6th movie’ per se.” The cop being portrayed isn’t named, but speculation suggests it's at least based on Michael Fanone, the tattooed Capitol cop-turned-CNN commentator. I made a strong case in the Optionist for a Fanone movie when his memoir was published in 2022.
Peacock has ordered a series adaptation of Dungeon Crawler Carl, the bestselling LitRPG book series, with Seth MacFarlane, author Chris Dinniman and scripter Chris Yost executive producing. The eight-book Dungeon Crawler Carl series has been a low-key surprise publishing hit of this decade. It’s sold more than six million copies and attracted even more through the audiobook versions. (On top of that, Dinniman has a great backstory from cat artist — yes, he drew portraits of people’s cats to make a living — to self-published author to multimedia magnate with books, audiobooks, merch and games in development.) The books are fun and funny and have been really good about attracting unlikely readers. It’s a passionate fanbase, which Dinniman has been good at connecting with through his Patreon, which has more than 12K paying members. It has given the LitRPG genre wider exposure. For those that don’t know, LitRPG basically merges an action-adventure story with the conventions of a video game. In the case of Dungeon Crawler Carl, it’s a story about how Coast Guard veteran Carl (wearing only a leather jacket and boxer shorts) and his ex’s cat, Princess Donut, get swept into a real-life game during an alien invasion and must fight their way out, all while being watched by an intergalactic audience. Along the way, Princess Donut gains all sorts of powers, and Carl gets presents (sometimes helpful, sometimes not) from fans. Carl can pick up extra skills and powers from objects he acquires along the way. There are lots of reasons to be optimistic about this announcement from the creative team — MacFarlane has exactly the right sensibility for this — to the passionate fanbase. I’m watching to see if this gives a bump to both LitRPG book sales and potential adaptations.
And just for fun:
This week: A ’90s-set NYC cop thriller, horror gets time-looped and a suburban drama in the Little Fires Everywhere veinI love a week that offers something for almost every taste. There’s a promising crime thriller set in a hot NYC club in the early ’90s that really captures the city at that moment, IMHO. Also below: a super fun horror time-loop tale that adds a twist to the loops. Plus: I recently rewatched the underrated Little Fires Everywhere, and the timing turned out to be fortuitous because a similar-but-not-the-same story popped up on my radar, so it was fresh enough for me to see how this one differed in good ways. 🔒The full lineup for paid subscribers:🍎 A series-ready prestige crime thriller set in NYC in the early ’90s about a club owner trying to evade both the Russian mob and the cops. 🗡🔮 A small-screen-ready romantasy that’s got Game of Thrones-esque world-building and spiciness. ⌛A Palm Springs-like time loop horror tale centered on a woman nursing her broken engagement at a friend’s Hudson Valley destination who faces a changing loop of horror movie tropes. 🏘️ A Little Fires Everywhere-style suburban drama centered on a Black couple who move to an all-white subdivision caught in a dispute with the poor neighboring community. 📰 Plus, two journalism stories — one about swingers, one about dads — that could be the inspiration for something more. This column is for paid subscribers only. Interested in a group sub for your team or company? Click here. To access all The Optionist content and continue reading, paid subscribers can click here.
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