Beaks here...

This is the epitome of "cool news".

Though you should definitely temper your enthusiasm, it's hard to not get worked up over the idea of a John Carpenter gangster flick. For a guy who favors tough, laconic, loner protagonists, it's a wonder he's waited this long to tackle the genre head-on.

The movie, which is only in development at present, would be called THE PRINCE, and, according to screenwriter Jeremy Passmore (who spoke with CHUD's Devin Faraci last week), it would essentially be "UNFORGIVEN as a gangster movie". It would also be "brutal and dark and violent at the end." Want to know more? Click here.

Though I love the idea of Carpenter playing around in the gangster genre (especially since he's such a Howard Hawks nut), we do need to remember that he hasn't got a feature off the ground since 2001's GHOSTS OF MARS. He seemed close to production recently with L.A. GOTHIC, but that appears to have fallen by the wayside. There's also talk of a Nicolas Cage prison movie called RIOT (formerly SCARED STRAIGHT). At this point, any new Carpenter would be welcome, but I think I like the idea of THE PRINCE the best if only because it sounds like the meanest of the three. In general, the meaner the Carpenter, the better the cinema.