Ahmet Zappa’s (The Odd Life of Timothy Green) Dodge and Twist was first announced by Sony back in 2013 and since then has been struggling to get a script in place. First written by Cole Haddon (NBC’s short-lived Dracula TV series) it was later rewritten by Simon Beaufoy (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire). Now according to Coming Soon the Cornetto trilogy (and former Ant-Man) writer/director Edgar Wright was turned in yet another revised draft for the project.
Making liberal use of the characters from Charles Dickens’ classic novel Oliver Twist and set twenty years later, Oliver Twist is a police officer in steampunk-themed Victorian London who’s out to foil The Artful Dodger’s dastardly plan to steal the Crown Jewels. The script is said to include a hands-on crime fighting Queen Victoria and even other famous Dickensian characters – I’d suggest Nick Uriah Heep, Miss Havisham or Daniel Quilp, because who doesn’t want an evil hunchbacked dwarf in a steampunk action adventure?
Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man) and Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) are rumoured to be top of the list as potential leads for the project should it go ahead after the submission of this latest draft. The odd take on the subject matter seems right up Wright’s alley given his previous work. Does this sound appealing to you, or are you a Scrooge when it comes to respecting classic characters?
Last Updated: January 27, 2015
Weanerdog
January 27, 2015 at 13:03
Have we ever had a good live action steampunk movie. It seems that the genre dos not lend itself to live film for some reason.
Blood Emperor Trevor
January 27, 2015 at 13:53
The only one I could think of off-hand was Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow, but that wasn’t really steam punk either. Personally it’s not a genre I care much for.