Tag Archives: Richard O’Sullivan

Michael Madsen Joins Cast of ‘The Genesis of Lincoln’

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Michael MadsenMichael Madsen has joined the cast of “The Genesis of Lincoln,” taking on the role of Ward Hill Lamon, the steadfast bodyguard of the 16th president of the United States, in the satirical movie-within-a-movie from Writer/Producer/Director Richard O’Sullivan.

Madsen, no stranger to edgy material, is best known for such films as “Reservoir Dogs,” “Kill Bill,” “Donnie Brasco,” “Mulholland Falls,” and “Sin City,” as well as TV shows like “24″ and “CSI: Miami.”

“The Genesis of Lincoln” reunites Madsen with longtime collaborator, Producer Patrick Durham (“Cabin Fever 2″), whom he worked with on “Don’t Pass Me By,” “The Killing Jar,” “The Bleeding,” “Creepshow Raw: Insomnia,” “Tooth & Nail,” “Cosmic Radio,” “Hoboken Hollow,” and the Hollywood mockumentary “Being Michael Madsen.”

Author Michael Cogdill’s Southern novel, She Rain, scripted by stunningly young writer and actor, Castille Landon, of Harvard.

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She-Rain,a Southern novel whose love triangle sweeps across the 20th century, just took a huge step toward major motion picture, in the hands of a 20-year-old Harvard wonder-kid. Castille Landon adapted the book into a screen work that proves a young woman can walk around with a beautifully old soul. Her screenplay runs deep, hewing close to the book, yet wonderfully refining the story for the best of movie making. The adaptation cleaves to the truth that a human heart will take no orders. It will not be told who to love, how well, or when to stop. It takes most people a lifetime to get this. Some never do. Castille not only gets it, she writes it with adventure and the power of immutable love. Her She-Rain is a story of young love aging well, through the deeply human struggles of crunching poverty, extreme wealth, and the heroism of people who change the world by living far ahead of their time. Castille has a writer’s heart and the skills of an actress who’s bound to gather red carpet fibers on her shoes. Harvard has another history-maker on its hands. Like Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, Castille proves young minds can excite and alter the course of human life way before the world expects. Remember the name Castille Landon. Watch for her She-Rain, coming soon.

Production notes:
Michael Cogdill, noval
Castille Landon, screenplay
Richard O’Sullivan, producer
Gilberto Vera, producer
A co-production of Lost Colony Entertainment and Verge Films.
2013
Starring :
Castille Landon as Mary Lizbeth

One Night With You

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Quirky romantic comedy from Writer/Producer/Director Richard O’Sullivan. When former child star Nikki Monroe’s career is rocked by a series of public scandals, her lecherous agent convinces her to do a reality dating show in order to clean up her image. Things get sticky, however, when she falls for the celebrity-hating bartender hired to pour drinks on the show.

Notes:
Location: Los Angeles
Dan Lashley, Story
Richard O’Sullivan,screenplay
Producers, Richard O’Sullivan, Gilberto Vera, Sandra Rayne Garcia
Music supervisor, Joey Lauren Koch
Production companies: Lost Colony Entertainment, Verge Films.

‘The Genesis of Lincoln’ Welcomes New Cast and Creative Team Members

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In the wake of controversial actor Doug Hutchison (“Lost,” “24,” and “The Green Mile”) being replaced in Writer/Producer/Director Richard O’Sullivan’s “The Genesis of Lincoln” by Robin Spriggs (most recently of the USA Network series “Necessary Roughness”), new cast and creative team members have joined the edgy indie satire that is being rushed into production for a Cannes premiere.

Taking over the role of pop star Neely Pepridge is twenty-year-old Castille Landon. A real-life pop star/actress in her own right, Castille is the lead singer of Adam 812, which has opened for the likes of Colbie Caillat, Third Eye Blind, Mitchel Musso (from “Hannah Montana”), and the legendary K.C. & The Sunshine Band. She is one of the stars of the upcoming series “Worker’s Comp” with Morgan Fairchild and Robert Carradine.

“Castille’s the antithesis of everything you think you know about the modern day teen idol,” says O’Sullivan. “She’s a super intelligent, college-educated girl who you’re more likely to find in a corner reading Nietzsche than choking on her own vomit in some disco parking lot. An absolute pro, an old soul, and a fearless performer and artist. She shows up to work, she can be bonded, and we don’t have to worry about including bail money in the budget.”

Coming aboard the project in the role of purity ring-wearing boy band member Jack Rose is newcomer Ethan Itzkow, who has been compared to such actors as Shia LaBeouf and Jesse Eisenberg.

Joining O’Sullivan behind the camera is Emmy-winning Cinematographer Sergei Franklin, whose resume includes work on such films as the Oscar-nominated “The Messenger” (starring Woody Harrelson & Ben Foster), Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls” (starring Janet Jackson & Whoopi Goldberg), “P.S. I Love You” (starring Hilary Swank & Gerard Butler) and the Oscar-winning “The Reader” (starring Ralph Fiennes & Kate Winslet), as well as music videos for such artists as 50 Cent and The Roots.

O’Sullivan, who spent a year trying to get a proposed Lindsay Lohan “comeback vehicle” off the ground, wrote “The Genesis of Lincoln” as a scathing parody of show biz culture.

“Everything’s a shitty reality show or a scandal these days…or a shitty reality show about a scandal,” says the New York-based filmmaker, who has himself turned down reality show offers. “I’m so goddamn sick of it I wanna poke my own eyes out sometimes. God bless Daniel Craig for what he said about the Kardashians. There comes a point when you gotta celebrate people for their works and not just because they’re famous for being famous. A celebrity used to be someone who was renowned because of some great art they created, or a life-saving drug they discovered, or a heroic act. Now people are celebrities because they flail around in their own shit on a bullshit TV show. This film lampoons that whole culture in the most vicious and unrepentant manner possible. We’re gonna piss off a lot of people and quite frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a fuck.”

“The Genesis of Lincoln” is being produced by Sandra Rayne Garcia and Gilberto Vera and will lens in New York in early 2012.

The Genesis of Lincoln: Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

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Directed by Richard O’Sullivan, who wrote the screenplay and will produce along with Gilberto Vera, the project is a “movie-within-a-movie,” focusing not only on the historical Lincoln tale, but also on a modern-day filmmaker’s attempt to make The Genesis of Lincoln into “an Oscar-worthy movie.” Things are further complicated when the director impregnates the teenage pop star cast to play Lincoln’s mother in the film. Does he follow in the footsteps of Lincoln’s biological father or does he take responsibility for his actions?
Notes:
Principle photography will begin in early 2012.
Location: New York City
Richard O’Sullivan, Story and screenplay
Producers, Richard O’Sullivan, Gilberto Vera, Sandra Rayne Garcia
Music supervisor, Joey Lauren Koch
Production companies: Lost Colony Entertainment, Verge Films, Cinema Music Consulting

The Wizard of Seattle Bound For Big Screen

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Kay Hooper Film Adaptation Set To Be A Harry Potter/Twilight Franchise For Grownups?

As the Americanized “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” prepares to launch into theaters, many Hollywood insiders are hailing the return of the adult genre movie.

“I think recent R-rated comedies like ‘The Hangover’ and ‘Friends With Benefits’ have given mainstream movies their edge back,” says Writer/Producer/Director Richard O’Sullivan. “There seems to be a willingness in Hollywood now to push the envelope and not play it quite so safe. It’s a little like a daring return to the adventurous 70′s.”

O’Sullivan is banking on that trend continuing with the announcement that he’s optioned the popular Random House/Bantam Books fantasy novel, The Wizard of Seattle, penned by New York Times-best selling author Kay Hooper (Blood Ties), with the hopes that it can become a “more adult version” of such mega-franchises as Harry Potter and Twilight.

“With series like ‘Harry,’ the idea was quite literally to pull readers in at a young age, then let the characters and story mature with the audience,” says O’Sullivan. “Well now, that first crop of kids are young adults. They’re in adult relationships, living in the adult world. What I like about Kay’s book is that she uses things like wizardry and magic to explore male/female relationships in a very mature and complex manner. It’s fun, it’s sexy, and ultimately very thought provoking.”

The Wizard of Seattle, one of the earlier books from Hooper (who rose to superstardom in the literary world with her Bishop crime series), tells the story of two modern day wizards who must travel across time to fight for their right to love one another.

“It’s very timely,” says O’Sullivan. “I think it will resonate with a lot of people on a lot of different levels. Forbidden love is as old as humanity itself. Romeo loving Juliet, vampires loving vampire slayers. In a world where people are increasingly intolerant of people living their lives the way they wanna live them, I can think of no better metaphor. Plus, it’s got the potential to be a terrifically entertaining popcorn movie.”

O’Sullivan, last in the news for his part in the controversial, on-again/off-again Lindsay Lohan comeback vehicle “One Night With You,” is currently in pre-production to direct the groundbreaking horror film “Hallows,” produced by Dale Alexander Carnegie (whose recent remake of “Clash of the Titans” grossed some $500 million wordwide). He is not only signed to write the screenplay for “The Wizard of Seattle,” but will also produce the film along with Linda Parks of Far City Films, in association with Gilberto Vera of Verge Films.

Acclaimed novel, “She Rain”, being adapted for film.

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A potentially Oscar-friendly drama about child living as prey to an opium-addicted father, drowning in a gene-pool of lowest expectations, feels shackled for life to the tobacco farms and cotton mill poverty of 1920′s western North Carolina.

She Rain
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Mar 08, 2011 – Beautifully written by Michael Cogdill (27 Emmys and a national Edward R. Murrow Award, his work has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and The Today Show).

She-Rain branches toward one of the least-expected figures ever in a Southern novel. Her mystery begging the question — what might have been, had an African-American infant born of scandal been placed on the arms of one of the grandest American fortunes of the early 20th Century? In the bosom of that fortune, she is raised utterly cloistered, hidden in the clefts of Appalachia, steeped in her “adoptive” mother’s Vassar education, classical piano, and the refinements most mountain people considered as distant and alien as the stars.

When that son of an opium addict (fresh from battling wilderness, a freight train and a white-water river) happens upon her — each in uniquely desperate times — they set off a seismic change to the worlds they’ve known. Driven by what Faulkner might call human hearts conflicted deep within themselves, they rise to meet an adventure compared to that of Cold Mountain and The Color Purple. She-Rain is a magnetic tale that melts the hard rocks of racism, classism, and the violent self-destruction of living down to the worst human expectations. By its contemporary end, this tale has moved readers of both genders to tears.
Entertaining with wild humor, the grit of reality, and a love triangle of the least expected.

Produced by Richard O’Sullivan and Gilberto Vera