It was more than a year ago when we were told director Steve James (Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters), Steven Zaillian (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Moneyball), and executive producer Martin Scorsese had set their sights on Roger Ebert‘s memoir, Life Itself, as the basis of a new documentary. The project, though always moving at a quiet pace, undoubtedly inherited its own unfortunate significance when their subject passed away in April — after which point, the in-progress work could simply never emerge as originally intended.
No matter what impact that ultimately has, we’ll still see the complete title in a relatively short amount of time — as a matter of fact, if a new press release is to be believed, “early in 2014.” Paired with this notice is a new campaign, launched on Indiegogo, which looks to both support Life Itself and secure convenient methods of release for its supporters, the latter primarily through online streaming — coming January 2014 — that will serve as “an innovative pre-release led strategy which the film’s producers hope will unite the global community of the late film critic’s fans.” (In a select few cases, theatrical showings are also available.) Your own benefit, needless to say, comes down to how much you’ll donate in order to help James and his team wrap the production — so, if you’d like to know more, give the below video a glance.
On the subject of Life Itself‘s executive producer: while speaking at a press conference in promotion of the Luc Besson-helmed The Family — executive produced by his former collaborator — Robert De Niro said, again, that he and Scorsese are planning to reunite on “another gangster film,” though not before the latter tackles “another film he’s doing before.” Their reunion, you’re probably aware, would be The Irishman (that additional title is Silence), which has been spoken of in one capacity or another for some three years — while the last update, from January, would more or less indicate that things won’t kick off until, seemingly, 2015 at the earliest — so it’s not much new, and likely won’t be “much new” for a little while longer. For the time being, it’s at least nice to know that things are still happening on that particular front. [The Guardian]
Do you think the team behind Life Itself are taking proper steps to get their project finished and exhibited? What do you make of the Irishman update?