Today is Greg Kinnear day at BAD! And no guy out there deserves it more. The mild mannered actor is still kicking it at 40 years old no matter how many years go by.
Unlike the Sam Raimi thing, however, this bit of Kinnews may sound like a bad joke at first. Sony Pictures is adapting a book called Heaven is for Real. The book is about a pastor's four year old son who dies for a moment and sees Heaven. When he comes back, he describes it, and everyone is like, "No vegitables in Heaven? Sounds legit."
I actually had a redneck neighbor explain the book to me recently. According to this lady, the kid witnessed Jesus riding a rainbow colored horse. She said more, but my mind was exploding too loudly for me to hear the rest.
Obviously, over a billion copies of this book have sold, so the adaptation enters the realm of actual Hollywood filmmaking rather than just the Westboro Baptist Church VLOG sect. Greg Kinnear is in negotiations to star as the little boy. Assuming those talks fall through, he will then negotiate to play the dad, Todd Burpo. One more time: Burpo.
Randall Wallace will be directing. He's the guy who wrote Braveheart, the riveting story of his dad, William Wallace, and directed Secretariat, the riveting story of a horrible office secretary whose deficiencies are explained when it is discovered she is actually a racehorse.
Heaven is for Real (that "for" really pushes the title from harmlessly generic to silly) will probably make a billion dollars and supply ample counter programming for Hollywood's Fifty Shades of Grey adaptation. For the more adventurous, it should also supply one Hell of a double feature.