If you haven’t heard of John Carney, he’s the guy who directed the brilliant, lo-fi and moving masterpiece Once.
Although, as Slashfilm points out, Once made around $20 million on a $150,000 budget, Carney still hasn’t made a major move into American cinema (he’s released another film Zonad and has another drama The Rifters set to release in the spring, but both of those were pretty much secluded to his homeland (Ireland, if you can’t already tell by his last name).
But that’s all set to change. Carney just finalized a deal to direct Steve Carell in The Dogs of Babel, based on Carolyn Parkhurst’s novel of the same name.
Amazon summarizes the book (in their review) as such:
The quirky premise of Carolyn Parkhurst’s debut novel, The Dogs of Babel, is original enough: after his wife Lexy dies after falling from a tree, linguistics professor Paul Iverson becomes obsessed with teaching their dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Lorelei (the sole witness to the tragedy), to speak so he can find out the truth about Lexy’s death–was it accidental or did Lexy commit suicide?
Albeit quirky, I kind-of think this is a match made in heaven. Carrell is great with darkly comic roles (see: Little Miss Sunshine) and Carney is a great director who makes heartfelt films with a homey touch.
