Though Jonathan Levine's directorial debut, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, remains trapped in release date limbo, there are other Hollywood studios willing to take a chance on The Wackness director. As we reported last week, he's adapting the novel Echelon Vendetta for Sony, a novel he describes as "Kind of like The Bourne Identity on acid.” And now The Hollywood Reporter that Levine will write and direct another of his own projects, Positive, a romance set on Martha's Vineyard.
Positive sounds like another young male fantasy kind of along the lines of The Wackness. A twentysomething man goes to visit his fiancee's family at the gorgeous seaside resort, only to find himself seduced by her sister. THR refers to this as a "romantic thriller," but how do you not mine comedy out of that situation?
One of the most thrilling things about finding an independent movie that both you and the major studios love is seeing that filmmaker find success in the Hollywood system-- you know he's not starving after making such a good movie. And the fact that Levine is working on his own project while writing a script for a studio indicates that he'll be able to avoid selling out completely now that he's successful. His debut feature may still not be finding any love, but for the time being, he's doing OK regardless.
