Boys Don't Cry Director in Talks to Helm New Carrie Adaptation
Posted 01.05.12 by BrentJS
Carrie White, the eponymous troubled teen with telekinetic powers at the center of horror master Stephen King's first published novel, has been waiting in the wings for her chance to return to the big screen since May of last year when MGM and Screen Gems announced they were teaming to produce yet another movie adaptation. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa — a comic book writer familiar with King's work as the author of Marvel Comics' adaptation of King's The Stand and the playwright who re-wrote the troubled Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark musical — was hired to pen a "faithful" and "grounded" adaptation of Carrie and now the project may have found the perfect director to envision Aguirre-Sacasa's script. According to Deadline, Kimberly Peirce, the co-writer and director of the acclaimed 1999 movie Boys Don't Cry about another troubled teen, is "in talks to direct" the Carrie adaptation.
Here's the synopsis of Carrie from StephenKing.com:
The story of misfit high-school girl, Carrie White, who gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers. Repressed by a domineering, ultra-religious mother and tormented by her peers at school, her efforts to fit in lead to a dramatic confrontation during the senior prom.
Though considered "raw" by King, and once referred to by the author as akin to "a cookie baked by a first grader — tasty enough, but kind of lumpy and burned on the bottom," Carrie is still a highly regarded horror novel and, considering its hit-and-miss history in Hollywood, many have questioned the need to turn it into a movie yet again. Acclaimed director Brian De Palma's (The Untouchables, Scarface) Carrie (1976) was both a box office success and a critical favorite, earning Academy Award-nominations for both Sissy Spacek as Carrie and Piper Laurie as Margaret, Carrie's Christian fundamentalist mother. Conversely, David Carson's (Unstoppable) Carrie (2002) TV movie failed to convince NBC to pick it up as a series and earned few (if any) accolades for Angela Bettis as Carrie or Patricia Clarkson as Margaret.