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.

Could a British actor be in-line for a role in the screen adaptation of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay?

That at least is what the UK’s The Sunday Times hints at in its recent interview with actor Dan Stevens. Stevens, the article says, is scheduled to meet with Stephen Daldry about a movie project. Stevens declined to tell the paper what movie they would be discussing, but he happened to have the Michael Chabon novel with him during the interview.

Daldry is signed to direct Kavalier & Clay.

Stevens, 23, has never acted in movies, instead primarily showing up on stage or in BBC mini-series. He stars as Nick Guest in BBC2’s mini-series adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst’s novel The Line of Beauty, which kicks-off Wednesday at 9 p.m. in the UK.

What book has most triggered Michael Chabon’s wanderlust? William Pène Du Bois’ Twenty-One Balloons, according to The New York Times.

“No trip I have since taken in my life has ever measured up to the ideal presented therein by Prof. W. W. Sherman’s journey, in the custom-fitted luxury of his impossible balloon house, to the nonexistent, never-existed, long-vanished island of Krakatoa,” Chabon told The Times. “In fact, I have equaled him only in my occasional bouts of misanthropy.”

The solicitation for The Escapists #2 has hit the net.

The Escapists #2 Writer: Brian K. Vaughan, Gerard Jones
Artist: Steve Rolston, Jason Alexander
Cover Artist: James Jean

Multiple Eisner Award-winning and Wizard Top Ten writer Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man; Ex Machina; Runaways) teams with acclaimed artists Steve Rolston (Queen & Country, MEK) and Jason Alexander (Damn Nation, Gotham Central) for the second installment of our first Escapist mini-series! Max Roth and Case Weaver have finished the very first issue of their re-launch comic, featuring a revamped Luna Moth, and their promotional plans include a risky publicity stunt that puts Denny in an old Escapist costume . . . and in harm’s way!

Also in this issue is a never-before-seen chapter from Men of Tomorrow, Gerard Jones’s wildly acclaimed book on the history of comics, in which he unearths some scandalous press on the Master of Elusion!

With cover art by the sensational James Jean, two-time winner of the Eisner Award for Best Cover Artist!

Publication Date: Aug 09, 2006
Format: Full color, 32 pages
Price: $2.99