The Daily Munchies: Shutter Island! What! Why?

Posted by Luke

From out of nowhere, Shutter Island, the highly anticipated film from the visionary Martin Scorsese, staring of course Leonardo DiCaprio was moved from October 2nd to February 2010. Why? This was supposed to be an Oscar contender, fitting in the dark film of the year with academy's favorite tag-team due back again.

The film is based on a novel written by Dennis Lehane, whose books Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone have already been made into films (with pre-production of his epic, The Given Day, already underway.) I read Shutter Island and the novel is pretty astonishing: it takes the reader for a ride and does not let you go until the last page. The cast of the film is stellar, along with Leonardo DiCapio, the movie also features Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer, Michelle Williams and Jackie Earle Haley.

However, there is at least one spot in the line-up that has some problems: the screenplay writer Laeta Kalogridis. The past two films she worked on were Pathfinder and Alexander, which were not exactly wildly successful. Of course, in her defense, there are other writers involved in Shutter Island and of course the studio will have a say in what the script will look like. Moreover, she is working on Wichita, directed by James Mangold and starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz and James Cameron’s next project, Battle Angel. Hopefully the studios can re-work Shutter Island and get it out this year; no matter what, Shuttle Island will have my ass in the seat. [end of post]