Catherine Hardwicke has a new movie planned. You might remember her as the director of last year’s religious movie of note The Nativity Story, but before that she was an explorer of teenage counter-culture in the movies Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown. I’m not sure if she found Jesus between Dogtown and Nativity, but her religious fervor seems to have been short lived since for her next movie she’s jumping back on the anti-establishment bandwagon.
Production Weekly says she’s directing a film adapted from the classic Edward Abbey book The Monkey Wrench Gang. The book is about a group of “environmental warriors” who wage war on road builders and developers in southern Utah. Apparently when it was made into a movie back in 1975, it inspired a bunch of hippies to go out and sabotage construction projects in real life. It’s unlikely that her film will inspire that kind of mayhem from modern youths, unless there’s some way to involve American Idol or turn it into a video game.
William Goldman and Christian Forte are adapting the screenplay, which will tell the story of four ecologically minded misfits. It begins by following a Vietnam veteran and ex-green beret named George Hayduke, who encounters three other like-minded individuals while on a river rafting trip. A river guide named Jack Mormon, his assistant, and a surgeon.
Past attempts at turning environmentalism into film have been disastrous. Such movies always end up heavy-handed and preachy, or just completely brain-dead. Happy Feet brushed up against the whole “save the Earth” thing last year, and only narrowly avoided collapsing under the weight of it. Hardwicke has her work cut out for her if she wants this to be any better than the usual tree hugging crap we’re usually saddled with.
