For the entirety of his career, Todd Phillips has been responsible for medium-concept, ridiculously successful male-centric comedies. But once he puts the finishing touches on his third Hangover movie, which has circled a May 24, 2013 release date, it’s sounding like Phillips will attempt to go in a completely different direction, tonally speaking.
Phillips’ name is attached to an adaptation of Linwood Barclay’s Trust Your Eyes, a paranoid thriller about a schizophrenic savant who witnesses a murder, but is not trusted by the authorities as a credible source because he’s evidently insane. Every review of Eyes links it back to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, which sounds great. And now Deadline says Warner Bros. and Phillips have hired screenwriter Peter O’Brien to attack the script.
Black List trackers might know O’Brien for his treatment of Unlocked, about a CIA interrogator who unwittingly unleashes a biological attack on London. That script got him gigs adapting Robert Ludlum’s The Chancellor Manuscript for Paramount and Line of Sight for Warner Bros. Clearly the studio’s pleased with his work if they are willing to hand this project to him for Phillips.
As for Phillips, it will be extremely interesting to see him step out of a bawdy comfort zone that has led to memorable comedies like Old School, Due Date and the Hangover films. Just so long as Phillips doesn’t hand the savant role to Zach Galifianakis. On second thought, that might be brilliant. How about you? Do you think that Phillips of capable of squeezing suspense out of the scenarios in Barclay’s novel? Should he stick to comedies? Share your thoughts.
