Michael Chabon says “there’s no substitute” for MacDowell Colony, where he’s written parts of his last three books.

Chabon and his wife, Ayelet Waldman, take turns going to MacDowell on two-week trips each year, The New York Times reported today.

“The work just becomes the center of your entire existence,” Chabon said. “You can’t be a good parent and have your work be the center of your entire existence. They’re mutually exclusive.”

The Times said Chabon has written “important parts” of Kavalier & Clay, The Final Solution, and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union while at the colony. “The last time I was at MacDowell I wrote a 70,000-word draft of a novel,” Waldman said, referring to Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. “I was completely inspired, I’ve never written like that before or since.”

The film adaptation of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is one of several movies singled-out by Paramount’s president as must-film projects, HollywoodReporter.Com reports.

The site reports that Gail Berman, who took the studio’s reins 13 months ago, is “ardently pursuing” two Scott Rudin productions, Kavalier and an adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections.

Focusing on smart, adult-targeted movies is important for the studio come Oscar season, Berman said. Other projects along those lines include Babel, World Trade Center and Freedom Fighters.

“Paramount has not been where the awards have been,” Berman said. “It’s important come award season that we’re competitive.”

Natalie Portman “is a strong likelihood” to play Rosa Saks in the film adaptation of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon announced Wednesday.

“The fate of this project–whether it will move at last from the nebulousness of pre-pre-production into really-truly pre-production, with a budget and cast and everything, will be decided on or around 12 July 2006,” Chabon said in a posting on his Web site.

Casting continues, Chabon said, along with the script, with “a lot of cutting” taking place. Several “top-drawer” animation students are conducting tests for the movie’s comic book sequences, Chabon said.

Portman, of Star Wars and V for Vendetta fame, previously came up as a possibility for the role of Rosa in a January 2005 Web site update by Chabon, in which he called her “perfect” for the role. Other casting rumors at the time included Tobey Maguire as Sam Clay and Jamie Bell as Joe Kavalier.

Chabon also briefly confirmed the existence of certain scenes and themes, including the Golem, a gay love story and Salvador Dali. He also confirmed Kavalier would go to Antarctica, a scene his wife, Ayelet Waldman, had said in 2002 audiences would “never see” on film.

However, several notables are missing from the film at this moment, Chabon said, including the ruins of the World’s Fair, Long Island, Orson Wells, any references to Betty and Veronica, and Stan Lee.

Pre-production work on the film adaptation The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay has officially kicked off, with filming scheduled throughout the summer, according to the New York City’s mayor’s office.

Paramount Pictures kicked-off scounting in New York on May 3, the office’s weekly movie projects list says. Scouting will end June 2.

Meanwhile, filming has been scheduled since April 1, the document says. That is scheduled to end July 1.

Chabon had announced March 29 that pre-production had begun.

The film, produced by Scott Rudin and to be directed by Stephen Daldry, features production design by Patrizia von Brandenstein and costume designs by Ann Roth. Paul Pope is in charge of converting the comic elements to film. No casting has officially been announced to date.

The cover for the paperback edition of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay featured the Empire State Building because readers didn’t like the comic book renderings on the hard cover edition, Michael Chabon said Tuesday.

“Readers were turned off by the comic book thing,” Chabon said. “It was a marketing thing.”

Chabon made the comments during a talk at Stanford University. The talk primarily focused on what he called the “ghetto-ization” of short stories.

Chabon told the audience to look at the short story medium as less strict with genres.

“I like to look at guys like Italo Calvino and Borges,” Chabon said. “They were right on the lines where they couldn’t be easily defined in terms of genre.”

To read the rest of the surprisingly excellent article by The Stanford Daily, click here.