Last time we heard anything about a potential Hunchback Of Notre Dame movie, it was being developed by Tim Burton and Josh Brolin. That one never happened, but now a new version is underway. Chuck Russell is directing The Hunchback, with Max Ryan set to play the unfortunate Quasimodo{
The film is based, of course, on Victor Hugo's classic novel Notre Dame De Paris: a story that's been much filmed before. There's a 1905 silent version; the famous Charles Laughton 1939 version; a decent '80s TV version with Anthony Hopkins; the 1997 Disney cartoon; and another '90s TV version with Salma Hayek and Mandy Patinkin.
At base, the tragic tale revolves around the deformed Paris bellringer Quasimodo and his doomed love quadrangle with the beautiful gypsy girl Esmerelda, the crazed archdeacon Frollo and the dashing military captain Phoebus. Its dark themes take in repression, hatred, religious persecution, revenge and desperate loneliness. The novel ends with Quasimodo walling himself up with Esmerelda's corpse. Nobody's ever filmed that.
What we can expect from this latest iteration is unclear, although Russell's comic-book sensibilities (he directed the third Nightmare On Elm Street, The Blob remake, The Mask and The Scorpion King) suggest it might be more I, Frankenstein than Hugo. Ryan too is best nown for genre fare (Death Race, Kiss Of The Dragon, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which had its own hunchback). The IMDb suggests that The Hunchback in this film has been re-named Pierre.
The IMDb also tells us that Steven Berkoff is elsewhere in the cast, and that pre-production began in July. According to THR{