Ellen Page to Star in Michel Gondry’s Return of the Ice Kids

Posted by on March 16th, 2010   Filed under: Indie, Sci-fi
Source: The Playlist

pagegondry

Director Michel Gondry has been doing some press interviews at SXSW this week for his new documentary The Thorn in the Heart, and as you might expect, he has been fielding a lot of questions about the status of possible projects to come after The Green Hornet. It turns out he has quite a bit on the go… so much, in fact, that it’s hard to keep it all straight. I’ll do my best to recap, courtesy of The Playlist:

  • His adaptation of Rudy Rucker’s sci-fi novel The Master of Space and Time is no longer happening, but instead he is doing another sci-fi movie called Return Of The Ice Kids. This one is “about a group of teenagers who invent a kind of water that makes you hear music”. Ellen Page is attached to star as the main character Nancy, and it is being written by Keith Bunin (In Treatment). Gondry is also working on a screenplay with Bunin about some kids that travel into the future by mistake, but I’m a bit unclear on whether that is the same movie or not.
  • His animated film Megalomania, which he is working on with his son Paul and writer Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), will be voiced by Seth Rogen, Steve Buscemi and Juliette Lewis. It’s “about three kids who discover how to create energy from hair. And they shave everyone on the planet.”
  • He is planning a low budget indie drama starring non-actors called The We & The I that grew out of his book You’ll Like This Film Because You’re In It: The Be Kind Rewind Protocol. It has something to do with group dynamics and communities.
  • Lastly, Gondry is doing some sort of IMAX 3-D musical with Bjork. He describes it as a 40-minute experiment that is likely suited “more for museums”.

Clearly the man has no shortage of ideas and is not afraid to embrace even the most bizarre ones. With any luck, at least a couple of these projects will materialize within the next year or so. Do any of these upcoming Michel Gondry films pique your interest?



  • Mike

    Awesome…most exciting news i’ve heard in a while. i’m stoked to see all of these.

  • Just seeing the name “Ellen Page” makes me want to avoid this. I really do not understand the hype with her.

  • Colin

    Just want to echo the Ellen Page opinion… I’m done with her and this makes me sad.

    I was really looking forward to The Master of Space and Time.

  • I don’t know where this Ellen Page “hype” is coming from. She was in Juno and had a supporting role in X-Men 3, other than that she’s been in mostly small indie films. How can you be done with her already? Her career is just starting. Sounds to me like she’s still feeling the effects of the Juno backlash.

    Inception will be her first co-headlining role in a blockbuster, and I think this more than anything will be her chance to prove she can play something other than the plucky young teenager. Of course, we know nothing about her character or the story as of yet, so who knows… maybe she will just be another plucky young teenager after all.

  • I gave Juno two chances in theaters, before the hype really took off (the theater I worked at was lucky to get it early enough) and I could not stand it. The dialogue is flat out unbearable and anyone could have played Juno and we could have gotten the same movie.

    The lasting effects of Juno backlash will haunt her career for awhile, but I will at least defend Whip It. That movie was a lot better than I thought it was going to be, although her character was the exact same as everything else she’s done, without the “witty” dialogue.

  • I still like Juno, but have not rewatched it since the theatre. Either way I don’t think it’s fair to hold Diablo Cody’s dialogue against Ellen Page.

  • everyone that bad mouths Ellen Page needs to see HardCandy or Shut the F*ck up

  • Mike

    Ellen Page FTW

  • Me

    Damn this post has bummed me out no Master of Space and Time he could have done something amazing with that i was really looking forward to that.

  • Ian

    Nice to know he’s got plenty of irons in the fire. These all sound like they could be fun. I didn’t see Block Party and Science of Sleep was a little underwhelming but for the most part Gondry can do no wrong.

  • Colin

    I’ve seen Hard Candy… cleaver concept, pretty middling movie, absolutely ridiculous ending.

    And yes, a lot of my problem with Ellen Page comes from Juno and its terrible pandering, but is that not valid? Perhaps even worse than that is the fact that (you admit) she’s been in a handful of things, and now she’s more often seen in a commercial for Cisco (WTF… come on) than on the movie screen.

    Basically she’s boring and will continue to play ironic alternative-girl parts until people get tired of her.

    I guess some of us got tired of her faster than others.

  • /\/\/\/\/\ do you even know what contradicting yourself means? you basically admit your problem is with Juno and not Page and you are dissing her for doing a series of well made commercials?! so any celebrity that does a commercial is out in your book? how is she boring? what young actress is blowing us away right now with her extreme choices, Amy Adams? Dakota Fanning? Get real.

  • Colin

    She’s boring and lifeless, and those “well made commercials” are great examples of this. As for her doing commercials in particular, I don’t think she’s earned the right and I don’t think it’s a smart move… obviously there is backlash from Juno, so the smart move would to have done something completely different to get people to see her in a different light. Instead, she did Whip It, which many will view in the same light as Juno, and a series of commercials where she plays a boring young girl who sounds a little bored and a little aloof… where have I seen that before?

    And fuck it, it’s a total cash grab for a girl who has very little celebrity other than something that became popular because of how ironic it was… it’s like defending Jon Heder immediately after Napoleon Dynamite.

    As far as young actresses making great choices? I think Abigail Breslin is doing a great job at being awesome without resorting to absolute pandering.

  • right…..

    My Sister’s Keeper (2009)
    An American Girl (2008)
    Nim’s Island (2008)

  • Colin

    You’re basically proving my point… Abigail is willing to get out there and defy expectations (and fucking work), while Ellen followed up Juno with Juno on Skates and then made some commercials. And just because those movies weren’t made for you (and I assure you they weren’t) does not mean they aren’t decent, successful films. Shit, My Sisters Keeper was written and directed by Nick Cassavetes… GTFO.

    And what the fuck does Ellen page have to do with telecommunications?! It was groan-worthy on 30 Rock, and it’s fucking miserable whenever Ellen trundles in.

  • Jason_Miami

    I don’t understand the hate but I do think Ellen is playing it safe right now and cashing in on the Juno status with those dumb commercials but w/e. Chill out guys. Also, I like how Rus left out Little Miss Sunshine and Zombieland, which are completely different, and now she’s playing Helen Keller on Broadway. You can’t say that Abigail hasn’t done more to prove herself, especially in comparison to Ellen.

    But w/e guys. It’s fucking Michel Gondry. That guy made me love Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine and Mos Def and Jack Black in Be Kind Rewind so I don’t care who he casts, he’ll probably make them awesome.

  • if Abigail is the next great actress why didn’t she play the sister with no hair in My Sisters Keeper..huh?

    Why does she get a pass doing commercials, she has done more, and more cheesy ones then Page?

    In Little Miss Sunshine she plays a normal little cute girl surrounded by dysfunctional characters – no stretch there!

    Zombieland, really?

    I like how men like to discount Juno, maybe because its written from a female perspective they don’t understand or is SCARY to them.

    get a better argument

  • I don’t really have anything against Abigail Breslin, and I agree that Ellen Page hasn’t proven herself to have a ton of range yet. However, she has done some interesting things in the way of smaller Canadian indie films, although no one has really seen those performances (myself included). I feel confident that she will prove herself over time, and again, I point to Inception as a possible turning point. We shall see.

  • Mike
  • Gman

    I have to take issue with those who attack Ellen Page on the basis of their opinion of the movie, or on the basis of her acting career, of which they know so little.

    Whilst Juno is her only “big” hit, Ellen Page has been working steadily for years, and whilst Juno became a true box-office hit, it was at the time she made it, merely another in a line of independent movies she was working on.

    I first spotted her when I was watching the TV show “ReGenesis”. She was amazing in every episode she appeared in, which was why I went to see Hard Candy, when it first came out. Again, she was amazing in the part. Juno was merely another step, but was one of many films that she had worked on and were awaiting release at the time.

    As for the lack of stuff since then, well, she now has several new films in the pipeline, and I who can blame her for taking a break from the whole thing, when all the hype about Juno blew up. This was not a big hollywood movie, and she could have had no expectation that it would have such an impact on her life.

    Dont get me wrong, I actually love Juno. I think its a great movie, and whilst some may take issue with the language, the actual events and characters are spot on.

    All in all, just look back at her carreer so far. She herself admits that it was only when she was 16? that she consciously decided she wanted to be an actor. Since then, she has worked in a variety of movies, and seems to carefully choose scripts in which she is actually required to act.

    I for one, think she is an actor to be admired, as she truly seems far more interested in pursuing acting as a serious job, rather than as an excuse to get her face in the news.