Stemming from a recent chat conversation between myself and fellow esteemed chat alumni I've decided to throw this out for general consumption. Button Moon. Button Moon We reckon it's about time that Hollywood studios adapted it for the big screen. Try to imagine a big budget CGI heavy update of the seminal TV classic. The original programmes had a certain Kubrick-esque feel about them with the ocassional Spielbergian sense of epic grandeur (though often without the over sentimentality). Now, when, not if but when, Dreamworks or Universal or 20th Century Fox or whoever, fight it out for the rights to bring it to the big screen who do you reckon should play the lead roles of Mr Spoon, Mrs Spoon, their daughter Tina Tea-Spoon and their friend Eggbert? The Spoon family Family friend Eggbert I have my heart set on either Clive Owen or Daniel Craig to play Mr Spoon, as I feel either could bring the raw "man on the brink" edge to the character. Maybe even Kiefer Sutherland after his awesome stint on "24", he certainly has the "man on the edge" thing down cold. For Mrs Spoon I rather fancy Rachel Weisz or Kate Winslet or maybe even Kate Beckinsale. I feel that the character should be played by someone English. For Tina Tea-Spoon I was thinking Elisha Cuthbert but only if Kiefer Sutherland turned down the role of Mr Spoon, after all we don't want it to look and feel like an episode of "24". Maybe Kristin Kreuk of "Smallville" fame as she can bring that "girl next door" sweetness to the character. Or we could raunch it right up and have myspace hottie Tila Nguyen aka Tila Tequila - providing she can act of course... Now for Eggbert, this is going to be controversial, but I feel that the character should be oriental, after all the Enterprise NX-01 had Hoshi, Kirk's Enterprise had Sulu and Voyager had Harry Kim. What do you guys reckon?
Nice thread Chimp! I remember the Chat very well! It would be a shame for the film to lose that Kubrickesque feel really and if it went all Hollywood that's what may happen. I agree about Clive though,he is lovely! Or what about Joseph Fiennes, now he IS lovely. I think that Kate Beckinsale would be the wrong choice,I personally favour Kate Winslet as she is more versatile . I shall have to have a think about the others though,tricky.
I thought Beckinsale was about the only decent thing in "Underworld", having said that she was running about in a skin tight leather/pvc number so my opinion might have been clouded somewhat... I just know that Mrs Spoon is quintessentially English. I also thought about Sophia Myles in the role. I mean I thought she was stunning in that Dr. Who episode "The Girl in the Fireplace". However, I feel the key role is of course Mr Spoon, if that role isn't cast correctly it could spell box office disaster.
I reckon there might be some legal issues involved. Some guy who has his own personal rocket (The UN weapons inspectors would be very interested in that, I’m sure) and takes his family on regular trips to the moon without any of the rigorous training or protective equipment given to your run-of-the-mill astronaut (Health and Safety issue there) to peer through a telescope and spy on other people (Invasion of Privacy / Voyeur issues) might have been ok in a more innocent bygone era. But in this day and age, I could see it being somewhat controversial. It would likely never make it past the film censors
You have to remember that this is merely a movie, granted it has the potential to be the greatest sci-fi epic of them all, but a movie it is never the less. We could do the Button Moon movie as a sort of prequel to the TV series, a Button Moon year one like "Batman Begins" and "Casino Royale" which took us back to the origins of Batman and James Bond. In this way we could by-pass all the UN regulations and treat it a bit like Star Trek where drunk dude became the first human to go to transwarp and thus initiating first contact with the Vulcans. With regards to astronaut training look at "Armageddon", a group of oil rig workers blasting into space when they clearly weren't ready, but thankfully they did go and did their job and saved us all.
The prequel idea intrigues me. There's so many possibilities there - how Mr Spoon aquired his spacecraft, how he & his family came to be fitted with prosthetics made of kitchen utensils, etc The franchise has an almost limitless potential.
That's exactly my point. It would be very interesting indeed to learn how the Spoon family acquired their space shuttle. I mean it was interesting to learn that Solo won the Millenium Falcon off of Lando Calrissian and it was awesome to see the Clone Wars and extermination of the Jedi in the Star Wars prequels and cartoon spin off. I am in two minds over how to address the kitchen untensil limbs. We could just leave it be and have no mention of it or maybe they were involved in some sinister government experiment with super soldiers using formulas captured from Nazi scientists during and after World War II. There are so many directions this can go off in...
Hmmmm, I'm not so sure about this one Chimpy! It would be like the Fuzzy felt Moomins being replaced by animation all over again!
It think it has to be live action in order to fully capture the huge scope of the Button Moon mythos.
Fuzzy-Felt Moomins rocked. They were rather creepy though. Actually, if truth be told I was rather scared of the Moomins. Maybe we could eventually do an AVP clone - Button Moon vs the Moomins. Time to hide behind the couch! :EEK
The Moomin stories were pretty dark ,but actually I found Button Moon quite disturbing. Instead of getting Hollywood interested Chimp you could do a B Movie style Button Moon using models!
No, no, it will be a big budget adventure, part of a trilogy. I can see it now, directed by Peter Jackson, novelisation by J. K. Rowling, 4-part comic book adaptation written by Kevin Smith and art by Frank Cho with covers by Michael Turner. Let's not forget the various comic book spin-offs and novels for teens. The entire Button Moon canon can be expanded upon with possible TV spin-offs both animated and live action (like Star Wars). I quite fancy Tarantino directing an episode of Button Moon...
