I’ve never considered Tommy Lee Jones to be a particularly choosy actor. There are plenty of Man of the House’s and Double Jeopardy’s in his background. Still, it was a little surprising to hear that he was planning to write and direct a movie based on that crummy song written by the Bee Gees for Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, “Islands in the Stream.” I realize no one’s in between and how can we be wrong and that I should just sail away with him, to another shore, but I can’t. Luckily, a closer reading of the source article showed that Mr. Jones is actually using Hemmingway as his source material, not Barry Gibb and his brothers.
While giving an interview to the Telegraph to pimp the release of No Country for Old Men, Jones talked briefly (it’s way at the end) about his next directing project. His first was The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which some people liked but very few people actually saw. This next project, which Jones says he is currently writing (hey, isn’t there one of those strikes going on, I read something about it), will adapt a posthumous Ernest Hemmingway book that shares a name with the lousy country duet. Since he’s still writing the script, you shouldn’t start looking for this project anytime in the next two (or three years.)
The book, which was published nine years after the author’s death, is about a painter and adventurer who is visited in exile in the Bahamas by his three sons and prepares for the outbreak of WWII. It was made into a poorly received movie in 1970 starring George C. Scott. It doesn’t sound like a very upbeat pictures and will not feature sorority sisters giving Jones a facial.
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Tommy-Lee-Jones-Wants-Ernest-Hemmingway-7465.html
