After lingering around the dusty halls of development hell for six years, Travis Beacham’s attention-grabbing first script Killing On Carnival Row might finally have found a director to drag it on to the screen. Deadline reports that Tarsem Singh – the man behind Immortals – is attached to make it.
And given Carnival Row’s concept, it certainly sounds like something the visual-obsessed director could work with. Set in an undetermined future, the action takes place in a city called the Burge, a place that oddly looks like 18th century London. There, strange creatures share the streets with humans, but everyone is terrified by a serial killer stalking the darker areas.
Beacham originally sold the script to producers Arnold and Anne Kopelson and New Line quickly brought it to the attention of Guillermo del Toro, who coincidentally is now directing Beacham's Pacific Rim screenplay. But that was back when The Hobbit and other projects were dominating his brainspace, and he eventually passed. Neil Jordan was also attached for a while, but also moved on.
Now Arnold Kopelson seems to think they might have the right man: “I am thrilled that Tarsem will direct Carnival Row, which we’ve been developing over the past six years,” he says. “His extraordinary visual sense and use of light and colour can be compared to that of the great 16th Century Italian painter Michelangelo Caravaggio.”
Tarsem has been bringing that way with light and colour to fairytale Mirror Mirror, which just launched its first trailer…