Deep Blue Goodbye/Travis McGee film? - Page 4

http://www.badassdigest.com/2011/03/25/schlock-corridor-darker-than-amber-1970

Devin nails exactly why DiCaprio would be a terrible McGee. He'll look like an over-privileged guy that just got back from the club who saw Fight Club too much.

Ironically, Brad Pitt would be a great McGee.

My brother loves these books, when I heard they were making a film of it I borrowed Deep Blue Goodbye.

This was around Christmas time and I have read a lot of books since so it hasnt exactly rooted in my drink addled brain, but I remember liking it at the time, whilst realising Dicaprio was all wrong.

The idea of a 60's set sun drenched mystery/noir/thriller does excite me. When discussing it with my bro we threw around a lot of crazy ideas for casting - for Mcgee we went through Josh Lucas, Guy Pearce and Hugh Jackman.. but my personal fave was Liev Schreiber. He's a great actor and can definitely bulk up (cough*wolverine*cough)

I think he might be able to nail that calm demeanor and mean streek Mcgee displays. Reading this thread tho has totally fucked me- Aaron Eckhart, thats a damn fine call.

Rian Johnson to direct? Love that idea too.

Who would play Junior Allen though? I think the best idea we had was Doug Hutchinson (think about him in The Salton Sea) but I'm not convinced. In the book Junior creeped me the fuck out, and the last actor I remember doing that was Ben Mendelson in Animal Kingdom- which made me think he could be a great choice. Anybody got any thoughts on these suggestions?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cameron Hughes 

http://www.badassdigest.com/2011/03/25/schlock-corridor-darker-than-amber-1970

 

Devin nails exactly why DiCaprio would be a terrible McGee. He'll look like an over-privileged guy that just got back from the club who saw Fight Club too much.

 

Ironically, Brad Pitt would be a great McGee.

That was me, but I'm willing to move straight to the healing and agree with you about Pitt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil 

That was me, but I'm willing to move straight to the healing and agree with you about Pitt.

 

Oh wow, sorry Phil! I just, ah, assumed, but you know what happens when one begins to assume. The assumer's ass grows larger.

Let the healing begin!
 

Hey, missed this bump and on BAD -- great write-up, Phil. I can never get enough of Taylor's bloody mouth just before they crash into the closet. I was a bit snooty and over-protective on my first bootleg viewing (if I'm a stiff-necked fanboy of any property...), but Taylor's grown on me much since. And I've come to love the unnecessary wackiness of Jane Russell's long-distance cameo as the Alabama Tiger. The score helps loads with my latent fondness, it's right in my wheelhouse. Still baffles me they picked this book to adapt out of the others out by then, the plot's one of the goofiest, as you point out.

So Leo's just "attached," eh? I thought this was his baby, his personal ticket to a franchise. Not so? Oliver Stone still "attached" as well? The news has been scant on this'un.

I'd say Josh Holloway over Pitt, let alone DiCaprio (ugh!), but in any case try to track down the Shock Cinema magazine from back in the day where William Smith discusses the fight in DTA as well as Rich Man, Poor Man.

My uncle had just about every original MacDonald paperback ever published through the early 80s.  Those were some great covers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Subotai 

I'd say Josh Holloway over Pitt, let alone DiCaprio (ugh!), but in any case try to track down the Shock Cinema magazine from back in the day where William Smith discusses the fight in DTA as well as Rich Man, Poor Man.

 

My uncle had just about every original MacDonald paperback ever published through the early 80s.  Those were some great covers.

I'd rather have a McGee series than a movie, so Holloway would be ideal, but then it'd probably be accused of ripping off Burn Notice

After reading a couple of McGee's in high school (Green Ripper and, I think, Lemon Sky), I decided to start from the beginning with Deep.   Liking it so far, despite the dated attitudes (and, seriously, compared to Fleming's Bond, Travis McGee is Gloria Steinem). 

Has anyone gone to bat for Olyphant as McGee? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casey Moore 

I finished The Green Ripper today.

 

That ending. Wow. Lot of action writers get the action right, but they miss the psychological and emotional toll. Drew McWeeney mentioned Rambo on Twitter and you get a lot of sense of that at the end.

 

How is it Game of Thrones gets a series everyone seems to love, but we can't get a decent Travis McGee film?

The best part about The Green Ripper is that it's informed by everything Travis has done leading up to it. Travis is not the same guy as in Deep Blue Goodby.

Do check out David Morrell's First Blood though. It's a classic anti-war Vietnam era thriller. FYI, it was also written years before The Green Ripper. Not that McDonald didn't heavily influence Morrell. Everyone is influenced by McDonald.

What the --

OK, googled up the story on Deadline. Yeah, Greengrass could be a good fit, a VERY good fit actually. Although I hope that doesn't mean there's also unnecessary action sequences grafted onto the relatively simple gumshoe-ing of DBG. But in general sounds like the script is a wreck (still can't get over the surfing intro). Have you read it, Casey? (Or, uh... know how one might..?)

And as impressed as I was with him in INCEPTION, DiCaprio is still a terrible fit. Sorry, Leo, I say that as a fellow fan. Be a good exec producer and step back. Be the negative-McGee psycho in some later entry. Chew up the scenery and beat the shit out of Aaron Eckhardt for taking your dream role (before he kills you). Supporting Oscar!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casey Moore 

Yeah, I wasn't posting it cause the site hasn't posted it. DiCaprio is so wrong for the role. Everything describes McGee as a big, brute looking man, and DiCaprio to me just can't sell that. And I love him as an actor.

It's the reedy voice that would kill him. He finally started looking like a man in Inception though. Still had that voice, however.

 If he bulked up a little(Just a little) Timothy Olyphant would be a great Travis McGee. Why yes, I did just watch A Perfect Getaway.

Though I would still give my left thumb for Eckhart.

Is Michael Madsen too old? The physique seems write and he can play snarky badass.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casey Moore 

2:01 mark of The Descendants trailer shows you what Travis McGee should look like.

 

Nice, very nice. (Would still need to bulk up a little.) For a second I wondered if you were referring to Robert Forster throwing the punch.

Now Armie Hammer -- give him a decade to weather, and holy crap. 6'5", 220, drop-dead handsome and talented? That's proto-McGee.

Armie Hammer is a great call. Unfortunately, he likely won't look properly aged for another fifteen or more years. Still, hooray for the return of tall, athletic actors. Maybe Armie's a sign of things to come

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beldar 

Armie Hammer is a great call. Unfortunately, he likely won't look properly aged for another fifteen or more years. Still, hooray for the return of tall, athletic actors. Maybe Armie's a sign of things to come

Hammer, however, is the perfect age and physique for Boone Daniels in Don Winslow's The Dawn Patrol.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casey Moore 

Oof the end to Free Fall in Crimson. I knew it was going somewhere bad, but damn that. I so wish MacDonald had had another 10-15 years of writing McGee. I know that is selfish, but the later books really start tying in more and more.

Yeah, the last five books in the series, MacDonald really puts 'em through the changes. Can't wait to see what you think of Cinnamon Skin and The Lonely Silver Rain.

Just finished "Bright Orange for the Shroud" and realized I was picturing a taller, fuller '60s-era Arnold Palmer as McGee the whole time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casey Moore 

Damn. That was a perfect ending for the series. I think MacDonald knew it was going to be the end. And the fact it has never been spoiled.

I could spend the rest of the day just discussing the series.

 

Bit depressing to be done with all of the books, but such a perfect series of books.

Wasn't it, though? And he most certainly knew it was the end, the Last McGee  --

Not a major spoiler, I suppose, being a stylistic decision and not a plot point, but one I always like to let people discover on their own. As I've said, in my not-so-humble opinion McGee isn't just one of the best characters in 20th century American literature, but MacDonald provides one of and possibly the most satisfying endings to a long-running series I've encountered in any medium.

And beyond that, Lonely Silver Rain has in my opinion simply one of his best stories of the run. He hits all of the notes that made the series, with none of it feeling at all Greatest Hits-like; from the straight-up gum-shoeing to the believable action set pieces, help from shady past connections and working with a government agency, con-manning and strong-arming, and even some globe-trotting -- which in the past had been MacDonald's not-best work and usually felt a little forced on McGee, but here flows right through the plot effortlessly. And the character work that had been steadily progressing, and crescendoing in the previous 4 books, comes to a natural head. That such a great capstone to a series is arguably also one of the best of the run -- top 2 or 3 IMO -- is remarkable.

Anyway, so now that you know how it doesn't end, allow me to share what makes me a little crazy inside every time I think of it locked away in some family member's estate vault, or, worse, gone forever. In a 1979 TIME magazine review of The Green Ripper (which fair warning for anyone else includes some very big spoilers for that book's opener), the first paragraph has a big old bomb that MacDonald fans have been waiting to go off for-damn-ever:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,916954,00.html

(Obviously, there's spoilers-by-inference there regarding Silver Rain)

And rumored to be written from Meyer's POV. It's easy to see why MacDonald never did anything with it, and obviously there'd be nothing "canon" about it, but holy fucking christ what I wouldn't pay to read it.

Yeah, I should have been clearer that I'm dying to read it almost purely from an academic/fanboy standpoint. Just utter burning curiosity as to how MacDonald saw the series ending nearly 20 years before he decided to end it, and completely differently.

What he did instead is simply too perfect. Couldn't change a note.

If I'm ever down in NOLA, that'll happen.

I know Casey already knows about this cause he was singled out, but Drew McWeeny announced on Twitter that he's going to do a monthly Travis McGee book club starting in August. Sounds like a lot of fun, and will give me a chance to read them from the beginning (I've read exactly two, completely out of order).

Yeah, that looks to be great, and of course I standing-O the idea. Looking forward to it.

If only to see -- and this is really McGee Nerd Only territory, ready for MacDonald's ghost to pull a Shatner and tell me to get a life -- in talks about The Deep Blue Goodbye, whether anyone actually knows anymore the "ancient joke about the mouse" that Lois references "("I've been sick...") that breaks the tension and signals her recovery. It's a significant character scene, and McDonald's so good you don't need to know the joke for the import of the moment to get across, but damn if I've always been curious. Not even my Dad knew when I asked him the first time I read his dog-eared paperback decades ago, and he used to be a walking classic-groaner-joke-book. It just seems like a common-knowledge cultural touchstone to be referenced so easily, yet apparently lost to time -- like a Kanye "Imma let you finish" reference in 40 years -- and yet I've always suspected that MacDonald could have simply made it the hell up.