In some of the wildest news to come out of the success of Martin Scorsese’s latest film The Departed, Variety reports that Warner Bros. is hoping that the veteran filmmaker might helm a movie based on Brian Selznick’s bestselling children’s novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the studio having aquired the rights just a month after its release by Scholastic. (For those not keeping track, Scholastic and Warner Bros. have had a lot of success with J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series.)
The adaptation will be done by screenwriter John Logan, who penned Scorsese’s 2004 biopic The Aviator, and produced by regular Scorsese collaborator Grant King.
Brian Selznick’s novel is about a 12-year-old orphan who lives in the walls of a Paris train station in 1930 and a mystery involving the boy, his late father and a robot.
Scorsese already has a lot of other projects on his plate, but if he does fit the movie into his schedule, it will be his first foray into family films. What’s interesting is that with Scorsese’s recent first-look deal with Paramount, they would own the rights to half of any project he directs or produces for other studios as well.
Right now, Scorsese’s slate includes a remake of the Japanese film Silence about 17th century Jesuit priests trying to spread Christianity in Japan (in place before the Paramount deal), and he’s looking to direct a big-screen adaptation of Eric Jager’s historical tome Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal and Trial by Combat in Medieval France for Paramount. There’s also the potential sequel to The Departed in the works based on an idea by original scripter William Monaghan.
