Posts Tagged ‘Haverhill’

“Townie,” Andre Dubus III’s memoir of his youth in Haverhill, Massachusetts, is getting the silver screen treatment.  Dubus announced this month that he signed a contract to penn the screenplay of his best-selling book.

The book chronicles Dubus’ violent teenage and young adult years in the old mill town and how it contradicted the world of his father, a prominent writer.

Dubus did not identify the men who bought the rights to the story, but did say they are two brothers working as actors and producers on the west coast.  He also declined to announce how much he was paid in the deal.

Dubus did say that he plans for a majority of film to be shot in Haverhill and Newburyport, the town his family resided in before his parents’ divorce and their subsequent move to Haverhill.  Dubus revealed it was too soon to say who would be cast in the film, but he plans on being intimately involved in the casting process.

“Townie” will be the second of Dubus’ books to be made into a film.  His 1999 novel, “House of Sand and Fog” became a film in 2003, starring Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley.  The film was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Listen to Dubus’ announcement below to make “Townie” a Hollywood film!

Haverhill, MA native and current Woodbury, CT resident Robert Cummings (Rob Zombie) serves up yet another dose of the dark side as the director of this season’s nighmare-inducing horror flick, Halloween II. Scheduled to hit theaters on August 28, the film is a remake of the original Halloween II released in 1981. This is Cummings’ second time reworking the horror franchise; his interpretation of John Carpenter’s original Halloween was released in 2007. Check out the movie trailer:

As his stage name suggests, Cummings is no stranger to the horror genre. He is the acclaimed director of
House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects—the film that earned him the 2006 Chainsaw Award for Best Killer Movie. Clearly, the man has some credentials.

But haunting the big screen is just one of Cummings’ many career achievements; he is also a Grammy-nominated musician as the vocalist for heavy-metal rock band White Zombie. Cummings applies his musical talents to film and television projects as well, writing for and performing on over 50 soundtracks—everything from “The OC” to Rollerball.

Undoubtedly burning the midnight oil, Cummings has two additional film projects in the works: The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is set to release in late September, and preproduction for Tyrannosaurus Rex began just recently. In a March 30 interview with MTV, Cummings described the latter as “an incredibly violent ’70s action movie…Just a gritty, gnarly, violent movie.”

Didn’t see that coming.