Does Quentin Tarantino know what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
He just may, according to a rumor that is currently making the rounds which states that the indie director is attached to direct Twentieth Century Fox’s in development adaptation of the classic radio and pulp her, the Shadow. Supposedly the script is undergoing a rewrite and Tarantino will also take a stab at it.
Now I love Tarantino’s work as a director and I love the old Shadow pulp series, but Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups notwithstanding, sometimes two things that you love should not be mixed in to one.
Tarantino is a great stylistic director, but his style is his own. It is hard not to watch more than a few random moments of any of his films and not know that you are watching a Tarantino film. Even the film in which he stretches furthest away from his normal aesthetic, Jackie Brown, still has that Tarantino feel.
A Shadow film, on the other hand, will need to be drenched in darkness, fog and shadow, a modern noir. Director Russell Mulcahy came close in the opening scene of the 1994 Shadow film, though he didn’t really follow it up in the rest of the picture. (Granted, though, the script was the real main problem with that version.) While Tarantino has shown that he has been at least marginally influenced by noir on a story-telling level, none of his films have ever shown a visual influence.
Honestly, I was much more interested in this project when it was at Sony and Sam Raimi was attached as a possible director. But when Sony sold the film rights on to Fox, Raimi unfortunately dropped out.
Even if this rumor turns out to be true, and it very well may not, this is Tarantino we are talking about. While all directors are tied to multiple in development projects that seldom get made, no one talks about them as much as Tarantino. (With the possible exception of his good friend Robert Rodriguez.) In the meantime, I am firmly placing this one in the “I’ll believe it when I see the first trailer” file.
