Malkovich to star in "Hitchhiker's Guide"

[Paddy]

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - John Malkovich is thumbing a ride on "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", a Disney adaptation of the Douglas Adams novel.

Malkovich will play a religious cult leader called Humma Kavula, created by the late author especially for the long-gestating film.

"Galaxy" begins shooting this month in London, with Garth Jennings at the helm.

Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Sam Rockwell and Martin Freeman also star. Mos Def plays Ford Prefect, an undercover alien who sets off on an intergalactic journey with his best friend and the film's protagonist, earthling Arthur Dent (Freeman).

The duo hitch a ride through space -- with the two-headed ex-hippie Zaphod (Rockwell); his girlfriend, the beautiful scientist Trillion (Deschanel); and a robot -- to discover the meaning of life.

Adams adapted his novel for the screen. After Adams' death in 2001, Karey Kirkpatrick did a rewrite before Robert Ben Garant came on board. Malkovich's recent acting credits include "The Dancer Upstairs", which he also directed, and "Knockaround Guys".

[DukeP]

Im really looking forward to this; exiting to see if they can pull it off.

Quite difficult, I suspect, although the comic where actually quite good.

~~DukeP~~

[schmosef]

Great news! Thanks Paddy!

[The PIT]

Fingers crossed.

[Taz]

Thought that had been canned a long time ago

[az]

DISNEY!!!!!!????????

Oh. My. God. I hope so much this'll be good, but I don't think so. I also can't picture Mos Def as Ford Prefect - I never imagined Ford as a black man, I expected him to be more "british", with some alien tendencies, of course.

AZ

[KvHagedorn]

Between Disney twisting everything to their own skewed reality and using some rap dude to bring across Adams' quirky, geeky, dry, and very British humor, this is bound to be one of the worst films ever attempted.

[breezer]

Ford Prefect is not British, he is an alien. Now if they get Mos Def to do a realy bad english accent (like most yanks) he may make it as just a guy trying to fit in. Once they are off earth I don't think it realy matters then.

(I an extremely clever except during the times when I'm not or don't want to be.)

Breezer

[az]

Of course Ford isn't British, but it's hard to TRY to be british if your skin colour doesn't fit or you have an arm and a head too many, isn't it?

BTW, the little I saw of the series was really really bad. Trillian (the single most intelligent person in the books, IMHO) was just plain dumb. Blonde and stupid. Ugh.

BTW, has anyone read "A Salmon of Doubt"?

AZ

[KvHagedorn]

Even if the characters aren't supposed to be Brits, the humor is definitely British, and would sound all wrong coming from someone else. Can you imagine some rapper guy from Brooklyn replacing Peter Cook as the devil in Bedazzled? Thought not.

[Marshmallowman]

Disney version is going to suck, it might be okay in itself but it certainly is going to lose a lot of Adams humor as they Disneyfy it

As most of the humor is not simply not aimed at children, they are going to butcher it for $$$

[Fat Tone]

This is going to be a very very bad thing.

Martin Freeman is perhaps a good choice, but apart from that..ugh!

H2G2 should be left alone, not converted by Disney. It will either be nothing like was intended, or just plain won't work, or both.

Adams put his entire soul into H2G2, struggling over every single word. A tortured and brilliant man. No one else can hope to do this justice.


F.T. - an Adams Fan.

[KvHagedorn]

Agreed. Doug Adams was a true great. It would take a really devoted fan to make this into a movie, as it did with Peter Jackson and the LOTR trilogy. It's a pointless project, without the real lines delivered just so, it will fall totally flat.

[DukeP]

BTW: Read "last chance to see". Written alongside Mark Cawadine, a brilliant zoologist, this has truly found a mark in my heart.

Sad, but in a funny and "we cant help it" way.

~~DukeP~~