Gus Van Sant's New Movie Will Be Shot in Oregon, Sounds Kind of Dreadful

So it's been pretty nicely established now that Gus Van Sant has postponed his Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test project to shoot a script called Restless, written by a screenwriting newcomer who has the ear of Ron Howard.

The good news? It'll probably be shot here in Oregon. The bad news? It sounds fucking awful.

This morning I talked to Vince Porter, the executive director over at the Governor's Office of Film and Television, who said he'd read the same Hollywood Reporter story as everyone else, but hasn't gotten a call from Imagine Entertainment. "We won't assume anything until we receive the formal request," Porter said. "Obviously, we'd be thrilled."

Meanwhile, the O's Shawn Levy tracked down a Movieline sneak peek at the script. The report is coy, and far be it from me to bet against Van Sant, but this screenplay does not sound promising.

Protagonist Enoch Brae is a 17-year-old funeral crasher, drawn to attending strangers' memorials after losing both his parents. At one of them, he meets the beautiful, tomboyish Annabel Cotton, a 16-year-old with Six Months to Live. Love then blooms among the gravestones as “the moon looks on knowingly and sympathetically,” writes Lew.

Really? You know that's the plot from Harold and Maude, right? But with the icky geriatric sex replaced by hot dying teen action? You, know that, right?

It doesn't sound anything like Van Sant, frankly. But why argue? Just cast Robert Pattinson and Kirsten Stewart and the thing'll make 80 billion dollars.