Elijah Wood Set To Star in a Family Adventure Comedy BOOKWORM From The Producer of TURBO KID
Elijah Wood is set to star in an upcoming family adventure comedy film project Bookworm. The movie will be helmed by Ant Timpson (producer of Turbo Kid, The Greasy Strangler, The ABCs of Death, Come to Daddy) and it will shoot in New Zealand, which is where Wood spent his years shooting The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The story sees “12-year-old Mildred’s life turned upside down when her mother lands in hospital and estranged, American magician father, Strawn Wise (Wood), comes to look after her. Hoping to entertain the bookish tween, Strawn takes Mildred camping in the notoriously rugged New Zealand wilderness. There the pair embark on the ultimate test of family bonding – a quest to find the mythological beast known as the Canterbury Panther.”
Considering “that Mildred has read every book on camping, but never been into the wilds, and that Strawn is more at home on the Las Vegas strip than in the Southern Alps, the potential for mishap is significant.”
It’s also said that the film’s title is a reference to the David Mamet script later filmed as The Edge by Lee Tamahori that starred Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. “Timpson and screenwriter Toby Harvard, say that the two films share an outdoor New Zealand setting and a bookish character who thinks they know it all.”
This sounds like it could be an incredibly fun film project, and it’s the kind of story that genre movie fans are sure to enjoy.
Timpson said in a statement: “Toby and I are always obsessed by fathers and their foibles, especially the traits that we’re afraid of having or displaying. Bookworm will be a love letter to the escapist 70s cinema we grew up with, non-pandering cinema where adults and kids enjoyed all the onscreen shenanigans equally.”
Mister Smith Entertainment’s CEO David Garrett said: “We just love this script, which is so reminiscent of the best of New Zealand cinema – with its smart, dry wit and heartfelt raw emotional energy – all set against a backdrop of the most beautiful landscapes imaginable. And the father-daughter relationship is so funny and engaging, it is impossible not to love them both, for all their faults.”
Bookworm is currently in pre-production and will shoot on location in New Zealand in March and April 2023.