Last week Laremy raved all over Chuck Palahniuk’s latest novel, Rant. In the user comment section of the article I traded posts with a reader and briefly talked about the potential Palahniuk adaptations in production. It was known already that Clark Gregg, the actor and sometimes screenwriter had written an adaptation of Palahniuk’s Choke. But now we have word from ChuckPalahniuk.net that Choke will go into production on June 18th with Sam Rockwell in the lead and Gregg landing his first directing gig.
So what’s Choke about? Well, as with all Palahniuk’s work, that’s a pretty loaded question but here’s a metaphor-free look:. The basic premise is a sexually-addicted med-school dropout has come up with a scam to help pay for his mother’s expensive intensive care bills. Basically he goes to restaurants and pretends to choke on food. Eventually, someone in the restaurant always ends up saving him. He uses the paternal or maternal instincts of his saviors (these people end up feeling responsible for his life) to hit them up for cash every so often. Meanwhile, he works at a colonial theme park … yup, the story pretty much moves from there.
No official word on who is playing the mom but according to the website, Mr. Palahniuk is pushing for either Glenn Close, Annette Bening or Julianne Moore.
I’m interested as to how Gregg is going to pull this film off in entertaining fashion because there’s a tricky third act he has to deal with. I’m expecting a darkly funny first half and a more emotional, spiritual second but I guess we’ll see.
