A biopic about the life of late New Orleans author John Kennedy Toole, still years away from the screen, is getting a head of steam, according to Maxim Entertainment president Blaine McManus. After two and a half years, an Ignatius Rising script based on the eponymous 2001 biography by René Pol Nevils and Deborah George Hardy (LSU Press) is complete and fundraisers are planned in Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans (dates undetermined) to raise $50,000 for a packaging/development fund. McManus says the fund is designed to ensure the movie “is fully developed and produced in Louisiana by a Louisiana production team.”
The Nevils/Hardy biography takes it name from Ignatius J. Reilly, the corpulent Lucky Dog vendor at the center of Toole’s literary masterpiece, A Confederacy of Dunces. The novel about life in New Orleans was rejected by New York publishers and Toole, who served a short stint in the 1960s as an English instructor at UL Lafayette — then called University of Southwestern Louisiana — committed suicide shortly thereafter. The manuscript was later discovered by his mother, who showed it to author Walker Percy. Published in 1980 through Percy’s persistence and connections — 11 years after Toole’s suicide — A Confederacy of Dunces won Toole a posthumous Pulitzer Prize.
A Los Angeles/Lafayette-based film company, Maxim recently premiered Macumba, a campy, zombie-themed horror movie filmed in Acadiana starring several high-profile Latino actors. The movie is set to be released in Spanish-American markets in the coming months.
... written by Kenneth Holditch , December 29, 2009 - 03:01 am
Unfortunately, IGNATIUR RISING is a seriously flawed, even salacious, biography of John Kenneth Toole. The producers of such an offensive film should consider the possibilities of lawsuits and other actions against them.
... written by Malcolm Xmas , December 29, 2009 - 07:46 pm
Salacious? Sounds interesting, but is IGNATIUR the same as Ignatius?
... written by NORTHSIDIAN SHOTGUN : , December 29, 2009 - 10:32 pm
ACTUALLY! MALC X, IGNATIUR IS AH MEDIEVAL LATIN/GREECIAN WORD: DENOTES AH BODY ORIFICE, VERY UN-NEO VERBOSITY, AH MEDIEVAL TERMINOLOGY WIDELY USED BY THE GREEKS, COMMONLY USED WHEN ADRESSING WHAR SOMEONE COULD STICK IT; EX: PRESENT DAY SUBSTITUTE, WHAR DA SUN DON'T SHINE".... MEDIEVAL TERM, IN YA IGNATIUR ......... IF YA WOULD WANT TA SUBSCRIBE TA MAH NEWSLETTER, "MAH WEEKLY READER. WHICH LIST 10 MEDIEVAL WORDS EVERY TWO WEEKS AS REF: IN THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH,SEND AH SELF ADRESSED *ANVALOPE(*MEDIEVAL WORD) TO ITCHTAKNOMO, GPO BOX...CRAPOVILLE LA.70517, BE SURE TA INCLUDE AH *20.00 UNITED STATES MONEY ORDER OR AH CIRCLE "K" MONEY ORDER... PLEASE *NO PERSONAL CHECKS ACCEPTED!
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David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
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