Crushworthy - Fernando Meirelles and Slings & Arrows

I know most people won't care but this news was kind of interesting to me. Fernando Meirelles, director of the magnificent (if not terrifying) City of God and well made The Constant Gardener, is going to produce a Brazillian remake (for TV Globo) of the Canadian TV show Slings & Arrows!

Apparently he loved working with Toronto crews while here filming his next movie Blindness, where he cast 3 alums from Slings & Arrows (Martha Burns, Don McKellar (who also wrote the script for Blindness based on the book by Nobel prize winning José Saramago), and Susan Coyne) to join the stellar international cast that includes fellow Canadian Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy), Gael Garcia Bernal (Y Tu Mama Tambien), Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven), Danny Glover (Brothers & Sisters), Yusuke Asaya and Mark Ruffalo (You Can Count On Me).

Seriously, can't wait for Blindness, which opens in the fall just in time for Oscar season! The trailer is after the jump.

Sling & Arrows is a spoof dramedy about a small theatre company trying to produce a Shakespearean play (one per season in each of the 3 seasons, each of 6 episodes each). It's almost a thinly veiled look at the all the drama going backstage at something like the Stratford Shakespeare Festival (and if the recent power struggles of the leadership proves, it's that life really does imitate art).

The stellar cast includes an assortment of Canadian stars William Hutt, Paul Gross, Martha Burns,Kids in the Hall's Mark McKinney and Susan Coyne (which I know means nothing to people, even Canadians) but hey, the first season featured Rachel McAdams just around the time she was breaking out big with Mean Girls and The Notebook and Bob Martin and Don McKellar were about to break big with their Broadway hit The Drowsy Chaperone. Plus there was an adorable Luke Kirby who still needs to hit it bigger than he has, but was cute in Mambo Italiano.

Sarah Polley showed up later in season 3, before she was nominated for the Oscar this year for Away From Her.

It was shown on the Sundance channel in the States, and is currently on DVD. There's a promo clip of Season 1 after the jump:



Blindness trailer: