The Christmas Cottage movie
I never, never, never want to hear another complaint about adapting film from dumb comic books ever again. And if you’re tired of articles with headlines like "Pow! Zap! Wham! Comics movies aren’t just for kids" you don’t either. But now, you have a trump card to play – Hollywood is adapting movies from paintings.
Yes, paintings. Not painted comic books. Paintings.
First Showing shows us that Lions Gate is making a film based on a single painting by Thomas Kinkade, "painter of light" in the same way that Michael Jackson is the "king of pop," called The Christmas Cottage. Peter O’Toole has been cast in it. They note: "The film is partly biographical and based on events that led American painter Kinkade to become an artist." No word on whether they’ll include the FBI investigations or sexual harassment allegations – if Peter O’Toole’s in it, I suppose there’s a chance.
It’s shooting this month for the obvious December release, because this will be the film that gets O’Toole his Oscar.
Well, to be fair, there was Girl with a Pearl Earring, also based on a painting, albeit not a contemporary one.
Kinkade is a huckster and a one-trick pony. Numerous galleries are suing him in a class action suit for ramming his tawdry product down their throats. By the way there's a South Dakota painter named Terry Redlin who paints exactly like Kinkade. In fact, they have never been seen together.
Girl with a Pearl Earring at least had a character in the painting. This is a movie based on a location shot.