An all-time film traditional is being spun off for the small display screen because it has emerged that the rights holders behind One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest are cooking up a brand new collection adaptation.
Talking on indie filmmaking podcast CK Café, producer Paul Zaentz, the nephew of the movie’s authentic producer Saul Zaentz, disclosed: “Simply now, I’ve signed an settlement with Ken Kesey’s widow to develop a TV collection which we’ll make by way of the standpoint of the Chief for the primary season. Following the primary season, we’ll see what occurs to the Chief after he escapes [from the psychiatric hospital].”
Kesey, creator of the movie’s supply materials, famously disavowed Milos Forman’s 1975 traditional, partially as a result of it diverged from his novel, which was instructed from the standpoint of Chief Bromden, aka the ‘Chief’ (memorably performed within the movie by Will Sampson).
It’s not clear at this stage who, if anybody, is writing the brand new spinoff, or whether or not there’s a studio aboard. We’ve reached out to Zaentz for additional element.
In anti-establishment firecracker One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, a rebellious convict — performed within the film by Jack Nicholson — is shipped to a psychiatric hospital for analysis in 1963 Oregon, and encourages his docile companions to take extra management of their lives and defy the tyrannical head nurse.
Chief Bromden is the towering half-Native American affected person who pretends to be deaf and mute. Over time, the antics of protagonist McMurphy coax him out of his disguise and he turns into an emblem of highly effective resistance and emancipation.
As Michael Douglas instructed us earlier this yr in our deep-dive interview concerning the making of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, there was no scarcity of curiosity in potential remakes or spinoffs based mostly on the fabric, however Zaentz has largely most popular to maintain his powder dry. The one sanctioned TV spinoff to this point has been Netflix’s 2020 prequel collection Ratched, which solely ran to at least one season. Zaentz was a producer on the present.
In podcast CK Café, Zaentz confirms that Fathom Occasions will re-release One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest this month in additional than 1,000 screens throughout the U.S. to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the film.
Zaentz expresses scepticism about movie remakes of traditional motion pictures (“don’t remake Psycho,” he says), however muses that collection can enable extra time for character growth. That mentioned, in his thoughts, latest small display screen diversifications of The Mosquito Coast and The Proficient Mr Ripley, within the form of Netflix’s Ripley, each fell in need of the unique motion pictures.
In 2023, Paul Zaentz’s banner Teatro della Tempo Movies acquired the movie library of the enduring Saul Zaentz Firm, together with Finest Image winners One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The English Affected person and Amadeus.
Paul labored on a lot of movies along with his legendary uncle together with as manufacturing controller on Amadeus, additionally directed by Forman, monetary controller on Peter Weir’s The Mosquito Coast, affiliate producer on The Insufferable Lightness of Being, At Play within the Fields of the Lord and Anthony Minghella’s The English Affected person. He was additionally exec producer on Goya’s Ghosts.
‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’
