I haven’t been able to figure out enough about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to be all that interested in the Brad Pitt movie about a guy who lives backwards in time. The concept of the movie is a little too close to the next project Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle had lined up next though, so Boyle’s project is on hold. That’s actually a strike against Brad Pitt’s picture in my book.
Boyle had planned an adaptation of the nursery rhyme Solomon Grundy for his next picture. It’s kind of a cool idea if you think about it. The nursery rhyme is about a guy who lives his whole live in seven days:
Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end of
Solomon Grundy.
“It is a wonderful idea, and it’s got really potential still. Maybe. No one knows what Benjamin Button is going to be like, so maybe it won’t be similar to that at all. Maybe it will feel really different to that, so [that Solomon] might come alive again.” Boyle told MTV Movies Blog. He also said that this wouldn’t be like Benjamin Button, which uses a combination of CG and makeup to transform Brad Pitt throughout the movie. Portraying Grundy in seven different phases of life would require seven different actors in Boyle’s mind.
I hope Benjamin Button proves different enough a story to allow Boyle to move forward with his nursery rhyme adaptation. The concept alone is interesting and unique enough that I would love to see what the storyteller can do with it. Until then, I guess Brad Pitt is the closest we’ll get. Let’s just hope it’s not close enough to nullify Boyle’s idea.
