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Exclusive: Quentin Tarantino a Possibility to Direct The Shadow

By Dustin Rowles | Industry | August 4, 2010 |

By Dustin Rowles | Industry | August 4, 2010 |

The Hollywood Cog has been a little low key around here of late, not really because he/she' lacking for news -- he/she's in a position to know much more than what we actually report -- but because breaking news weeks or months before it is confirmed is a nasty business, replete with the occasional publicist denial, and a lot of headaches from around the movie blogosphere, where they take their trade news minutia very seriously. Plus, often by the time a story is confirmed, our original report is forgotten about, so few think to credit The Hollywood Cog (Halle Berry's Shoe Addicts Anonymous, Sam Worthington's Dan Dare, and Paul Greengrass' Treasure Island are but a few recent examples). Unfortunately, the Cog's very impressive track record gets lost in the mix. Not a big deal, really, except that the Cog gives us this information because it's fun to report, and on days when it's not any fun (because certain people treat trade new minutia like it's the quarterly unemployment reports, instead of what it is, namely entertainment news that has no bearing on our lives outside of the occasional casual conversation), we choose to write about something a little more in line with our site's mission: To entertain, provoke the occasional thought, pass the hours at the office, and of course, show you pictures of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, sometimes with blood.

But, we couldn't resist running this one, even though it's likely to be met with a lot of skepticism, though it's those projects in the past that are met with the most skepticism that I generally do not run that end up panning out the quickest. Damnit.

Still ... grain of salt, people. And I'll tell you why: Earlier this year, Latino Review reported that Sony sold the rights to The Shadow to 20th Century Fox, and that Sam Raimi -- who had been attached to the project for years, but had never done anything with it -- had passed the directing reigns on to David Slade (30 Days of Night, Twilight: Eclipse). The fact that the movie switched studios and that Sam Raimi would not be directing the film has been confirmed by third parties, and while the David Slade aspect has not, I have no doubt that it was true at the time. But this is Hollywood, and projects change hands monthly. The Shadow is likely one that may be passed around to a few directors before it ever gets made -- as of the moment, it's not even a huge priority over at Fox. In fact, it's currently out for a rewrite.

However, the person that is now attached to the project is none other than Quentin Tarantino, who is also attached as co-writer. This comes as big a surprise to me as anyone, because I don't know where Sam Raimi and Quentin Tarantino's movie pathways have crossed, and so far as I know, The Shadow has never been mentioned among the 27 dozen projects that Tarantino has always been obsessed with. Maybe he loved original radio show and the pulps (which do seem up Tarantino's alley), and maybe he saw Siavash Farahani's script and decided that, if anyone could erase the memory of Alec Baldwin's atrocity, it'd be him. Maybe Tarantino just loves the challenge. Or maybe he's just added this to the huge pile of future possibilities and has no intention of ever directing. All I know is that, for the moment, he is being discussed (and this is a two-way discussion) and or already attached as the future director of The Shadow.

But then again, it's Hollywood. And that may change again next month. Tarantino could change his mind and decide to direct Jason Benoit's Untitled Shit in a Bag movie instead (which exists over at Madhouse Entertainment. They must feel very proud to have purchased that script). We'll see how it pans out.



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