Anyone heard the buzz on this Joel Schumacher directed movie yet?
I saw the trailer today and the whole life imitating life part (i.e. the sniper serial killer) was unnerving. 
I should say life imitating art.
Also, I believe it’s called simply “Phone Booth.”
Here’s the trailer:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/phone_booth/trailer_medium.html
Buzz: Bad.
History: The script by B-movie vet Larry Cohen (It’s Alive, the flying-lizard movie Q starring Michael Moriarty, etc.) floated around Hollywood for years as a “great high-concept thriller.” At various times, it had Jim Carrey, Will Smith, and others attached in the lead role. Joel Schumacher (who is, IMHO, one of the five worst directors getting regular work in Hollywood) got involved maybe two and a half years ago, after previously-attached Michael Bay ankled over script-revision disputes.
Eventually Schumacher made Tigerland with Colin Farrell in the lead, and convinced some production company that Farrell would be the Next Big Thing. That’s what opened the door to Phone Booth, and the movie was shot a little under two years ago with Farrell in the lead.
Now the bad news: It’s sat on the shelf this whole time. The production company says they were waiting for Farrell to really take off, which he finally did in Minority Report. They’re now slotting Phone Booth into the early-fall period, where a quirky thriller may acquire by osmosis some of the gloss of the other prestige projects that start coming out around this time in order to qualify for Oscar consideration. That’s what they say, anyway; it’s never, ever a good sign when a movie gets filmed and mostly edited, and then delayed by a full year.
And sure enough, the actual buzz on the film is mediocre at best. The script was knocked prior to production for lacking a strong villain and a strong climax; advance screeners report that this has not been fixed in the final movie. In addition, another film has beaten it to the screen with the basic concept of somebody being held hostage by a sniper. That movie (which I hated, by the way) is called Liberty Stands Still, and was released direct to video and premium cable a couple of months ago after a fitful festival tour.
It’s possible that the filmmakers have taken the last few months of downtime to rework the material, and get a better movie out of it, but given the pedigree (Schumacher especially), I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
Wow, Cervaise - thanks for the concise, insightful response! You must really know your movies.
I now know who to ask about movies around here! 
I’ve also heard some mediocre buzz about this flick, and I’ve never been too impressed with Schumacher.
It’s a pretty good trailer, though.
I don’t have anything to add, I just didn’t want readers who avoid long posts to miss this hard, gem-like flame of glowing wisdom hiding above.
I just saw a commercial for this over the weekend. Schumacher appears to be trying to imitate Hitchcock but it’s hard to tell if he succeeded. Think I’ll wait for it to hit the video stores though, just in case.
Too bad. It looks like an interesting idea.
I hope it’s good and does well if for no other reason than it might be a shot-in-the-arm for the vastly underrated screenwriter, classic 70s Horror director Larry Cohen.
I heard it was supposed to be released sometime late last year, right around the time of the D.C. sniper cases but then because of the possible backlash they put it on the shelf for a while.
I’m not sure who has been saying bad things about it, but actually the script had a really big good buzz when it first came out, sure it was a little while ago, but the script itself is great and the reason it was delayed had nothing to do with internal problems on the film.
Colin Farrell has been a star-in-waiting for a while and although he isn’t really credited in the trailer Keifer Sutherland is a lot more visible now than he was a year or two ago.
The reason industry people don’t like it, is probably because it has been around so long, early scripts were written in '98 and they simply aren’t comfortable with a thriller with such an ambitious concept.
Realistically, it’s Vin Diesel vs Colin Farrell this weekend and everyone thinks Vin Diesel is a bigger star.
here is the Yahoo Movies link.
Both this movie and The Hunted were supposed to come out last fall, and then the whole sniper situation made the studios think better than to go through with it at the time.
Nothin’ more to add.
Oh, the script had great buzz. Go back and read my post; as I said, the script drifted around for years as “a great idea we don’t know how to film.” It’s the completed movie that has the bad buzz. Compare Miracle Mile, a flick from the 80’s starring Anthony Edwards as a dude who learns a random wrong-number call that the nukes will be flying in a couple of hours and runs around starting a panic. Amazing story. Iffy execution. Same here. I mean, there’s a reason knowledgeable film people consider Joel Schumacher one of the five worst directors regularly getting work in Hollywood.
On the other hand, Harry Knowles of Aintitcool.com says he really likes Phone Booth, so take that for what it’s worth. It’s possible the movie’s been re-edited into something that plays better in the two years it’s been held back. I’m not counting on it.
All I know is every time I see a commercial for it I think “Man, Jack has had such a hellacious day he’s finally lost it.”
Ok, I just wanted to clarify that there was a great buzz about the script, but it seems the question is whether or not people will go see a thriller that takes place in a fixed location and isn’t an effect-fest a la Bulletproof Monk or Cradle 2 the Grave.
I think, though, insiders have more of a problem with the mulitiple delays than with the actual film itself. Just my $.02.
I’ll admit though I’m biased in favor of this movie so I may have rose-colored glasses on. It’s kinda nice to see upcoming stars who want to be in thrillers as opposed to effect-fests.