Tracking Shot December 2009: It’s Kind of a Funny Story, The Grand Master, Super

At the beginning of every month, IONCINEMA.com’s “Tracking Shot” features a handful of projects that we feel are worth signaling out and that are moments away from lensing. We can expect a surge in film productions starts in January, but the month of December is short on film productions, yet we still have a trio of titles that are worth following.

The B&W picture above is one of a young Bruce Lee and his martial arts professor Yip Man (not to be confused with the fictional take on him in Ip Man). Wong Kar Wai has begun production on a biopic that will feature the two legends with Tony Leung taking on Yip Man and Chen Chang cracking skulls as Lee. If anyone knows who the cinematographer is on The Grand Master, please drop us a note.

We’ve been following the status of It’s Kind of a Funny Story (here is our interview with the author Ned Vizzini) and are glad that it became Ryan Fleck’s “next” project. Focus Features are behind the production, which officially began this past Monday and they’ve managed to put together an interesting cast. This is about a 16-year-old named Craig (Keir Gilchrist), stressed out from the demands of being a teenager, checks himself into a mental health clinic. There he learns that the youth ward is closed – and finds himself stuck in the adult ward. One of the patients, Bobby (Zach Galifianakis), soon becomes both Craig’s mentor and protégé.

We generally limit the number of super-hero films we cover in a year, so perhaps Super might do the trick. Rainn Wilson plays an average guy who takes on the pseudo-superhero alter ego of the Crimson Bolt, after watching his wife (Tyler) fall under the spell of a charming drug dealer. Lacking super powers, he compensates by swinging a trusty wrench. To follow that production you can check in on filmmaker James Gunn’s production tweets: twitter.com/james_gunn

The Grand Master
Director/Screenwriter: Wong Kar Wai
Producer(s): WKW
Cast: Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Chang, Zhao Benshan and Brigitte Lin
Filming in Kaiping (Guangdong Province), China

It’s Kind of a Funny Story
Director: Ryan Fleck – Screenwriter: Fleck and Anna Boden
Producer(s): Ben Browning (Ondine) and Kevin Misher (Public Enemies)
Cast: Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifianakis, Emma Roberts, Viola Davis, Zoe Kravitz, Aasif Mandvi, Lauren Graham and Jim Gaffigan
Filming in New York

Super
Director/Screenwriter: James Gunn
Producer(s): This Is That Productions’ Ted Hope and Ambush Ent.’s Miranda Bailey
Cast: Ellen Page, Rainn Wilson, Liv Tyler plus a cast member from TV’s The Wire.
Filming in Dallas