Summary
- Director Andrew Davis is working on a World War I project written by Gene Wilder, titled “My French Amore.”
- “My French Amore” is described as a black comedy about a man impersonating a spy in the midst of World War I.
- “My French Amore” is likely based on Gene Wilder’s 2007 spy/romance novel and has the potential to become a black comedy classic.
Director Andrew Davis spoke exclusively with MovieWeb for the 30th anniversary of his acclaimed action thriller, The Fugitive, revealing that he is now working on a World War I project written by the late, great Gene Wilder. Titled My French Amore (a title that might be changed later down the line), Davis describes the war movie as a “black comedy” about a man attempting to impersonate a spy. See what he had to say about the Gene Wilder-written WWI project below.
“I’m working on a project that Gene Wilder wrote about World War One, a story called My French Amore, I don’t know if we’re gonna call it My French Amore anymore or My French Muse. It’s sort of a black comedy set against World War One, about a man who has to impersonate a spy, and a young kid. So there’s a lot going on with that stuff.”
Wilder, who is best known for roles in the likes of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein, sadly passed away back in August 2016 following complications caused by Alzheimer’s disease.
As well as his celebrated career on screen, Wilder also wrote several novels, one being titled My French Whore which was released in 2007. Based on the description of the project by Davis, it is likely that My French Amore is based on the novel, which finds a shy, young railway employee and amateur actor from Milwaukee joining the U.S. Army, being captured, and then impersonating one of the enemy’s most famous spies in order to survive.
The novel was met with rave reviews at the time, and with Wilder’s words and Davis behind the camera, My French Amore certainly has the ingredients to become a black comedy classic.
Andrew Davis Says the Original The Fugitive Script Was a Mess
Released back in 1993, The Fugitive stars Harrison Ford as a doctor wrongfully accused of murdering his wife. He escapes from the law and endeavors to find her killer and clear his name while being pursued by a team of U.S. marshals led by Deputy Samuel Gerard, played by Tommy Lee Jones.
A remake of the TV series of the same name, The Fugitive is now considered an outstanding example of the action/thriller genre, but according to Davis, the script started out as a bit of a mess.
“You know what, when I got the script, it didn’t make much sense to me, and the dynamics of who was killing who for what reason were all off the charts, you know? And so I said to my sister, who was a nurse, what could get a doctor in trouble? And she came up, she said, ‘I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.’
And she spoke to a young resident at Cedars Sinai in LA, and he said, ‘What if there’s this drug protocol that the doctor thinks is really damaging people, and they’ve tried to shut him up?’ And that became the basis of the drug Provasic and [the character] Devlin-MacGregor, which is named after my dear partner, Peter MacGregor-Scott. That’s really where that came from […] Oh, there were a lot of articles about how everybody thought this film was going to be a disaster. Nobody knew what was going to happen to it, and then all these Academy Award nominations and awards start coming out.”
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has now remastered The Fugitive in 4K, releasing it on a 30th anniversary Ultra-HD Blu-ray last month.
“Well, first of all, it looks incredible and it sounds incredible. This been remastered so I was able to go in with a great team at Warner’s and my friend, Frankie Montana, who was at Universal. And if you watch it on a 4rK monitor, with the new Blu-ray, it looks better than you’ll ever see it in the theater. There’s more detail and more definition than you could possibly see in the theater. And then the bonus stuff, there’s just some interesting interviews with everybody talking about the movie.”
