CHARLIE KAUFMAN and GUILLERMO DEL TORO adapting ‘SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE’, NOTHING HURTS.

What a beautiful, beautiful development. Two beasts of my heart, ravaging in glorious respect the script to one of my favorite author’s works.  Billy Pilgrim is unstuck in time. Caff-Pow’s wanger has stuck to his thigh, throbbing with excitement.

/Film:

I’m tempted to say that this news tidbit about Charlie Kaufman scripting a new take onKurt Vonnegut‘s Slaughterhouse Five for Guillermo del Toro is the most ideal pairing you’ll read about today. Guillermo del Toro has been kicking around ideas for aSlaughterhouse Five adaptation for Universal for some time, thanks to a multi-picture deal he signed a few years back. It’s not one we’ve heard much about; At the Mountains of Madness took precedence after he left The Hobbit, and then there was Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak, and that possible Frankenstein adaptation. (More on that last one in a minute.)

Now the director says he’s got a vision for adapting the book — which features WWII soldier Billy Pilgrim, who becomes “unstuck in time,” living through periods of his life in haphazard fashion.And Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation,Synecdoche, NY) could write it… when the money is there.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph (via The Playlist), del Toro said,

Charlie [Kaufman] and I talked for about an hour-and-a-half and came up with a perfect way of doing the book. I love the idea of the Trafalmadorians [the aliens of ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’] — to be ‘unstuck in time,’ where everything is happening at the same time. And that’s what I want to do. It’s just a catch-22. The studio will make it when it”s my next movie, but how can I commit to it being my next movie until there’s a screenplay? Charlie Kaufman is a very expensive writer!