Variety has word that Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood--which is a really fucking fantastic book, as are pretty much all of his books--is slated to get the feature film treatment.
TOKYO--French-Vietnamese helmer Tran Anh Hung plans to make a pic based on Norwegian Wood, the bestselling novel by Japanese scribe Haruki Murakami.Fuji TV and Asmik Ace will jointly produce the Japanese-language pic. The cast has yet to be decided, but shooting is skedded to start in February in Japan for a 2010 release....
Published in Japan in 1987, Norwegian Wood depicts the loves and losses of a sensitive college boy in the 1960s who is more interested in American literature than in the era's political upheavals. The novel sold 8.7 million copies in Japan and has been translated into 36 languages.
Moving past the fact that Variety insists on using words like "skedded" instead of "scheduled," Murakami's one of my favorite authors. The only other piece of his writing that's been adapted into a movie is Tony Takitani, which I avoided out of fear of disappointment. I might have to skip this one, too, just 'cause I'm scared they'll fuck it all up, and just like I'll probably skip Jim Halpert's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. If I can't even bring myself to face the changes wrought in Wanted, I'm really not sure how well I'd handle cinematic adaptations of Murakami and David Foster Wallace. I live in constant fear.
Via Powell's.