Making Movies: Gun Monkeys and The Walk

Eugenio Mira and Lee Goldberg

I’ve got lots of movie news to share that I’ve been keeping bottled up for some time. First off, my novel THE WALK is being made into a movie, to be directed by Eugenio Mira, who made the clever, stylish Hitchcockian thriller GRAND PIANO (starring Elijah Wood and John Cusack) and did some amazing second unit work on THE IMPOSSIBLE (the tsunami movie with Naomi Watts). He’s fresh off of directing the second unit for JURASSIC WORLD II… so with that big-budget, action and disaster-movie experience behind him, he’s obviously the perfect guy to do THE WALK. The movie will be produced by Paul Hanson, George Paige and John Baca for Covert Media.

Covert Media is also producing my screenplay adaptation of Victor Gischler‘s Edgar-nominated novel GUN MONKEYS , which will be directed by Simon Brand. The development history of GUN MONKEYS goes back years. I optioned the book myself, wrote the script on spec, and for a long while it was set up with actor Kevin Costner and director Ryuhei Kitamura. That project came real close to getting made…and then fell apart. A new producing team came on board, offers are going out to big-name actors now, and we’re on track to shoot in late 2017/early 2018.

Back in September, Simon shot an action scene from my script as a camera/lighting test…and I’ve just been given the okay to share it now that he’s posted it on his site. The key parts are played by his friends and it has a voice-over that isn’t in the script — I wrote it just for this so that the action makes sense out of context. I think the footage looks terrific. Here it is. I hope you like it! 

Gun Monkeys from simon brand on Vimeo.

 

6 thoughts on “Making Movies: Gun Monkeys and The Walk”

  1. Congratulations. I cannot wait to see The Walk, what a challenge! I am very very pleased it is going to get done. I hope they will keep the funny and very tender sides of the book. Claude

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  2. THAT test footage for “Gun Monkeys” was amazing. I’ve been a fan of the book since I first read it on it’s release. You test footage is better than 99% of the action stuff seen on the big screen these days. Loved everything about it and will be following the progress. Please keep us updated.

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  3. It’s very exciting to see Gischler’s book move forward into film. I remember when it came out; enjoyed the heck out of it; in fact, Gischler and I appeared on the Thrilling Detective Website with stories in the same month (September 2000) and corresponded for a short time after. Great guy.

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