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House Of Puzzles Perfect Subject For Paranoiac Cryptologist J.J. Abrams To Spin Into Family Film
Posted by Seth at 8:00 AM on June 19, 2008
In a story from the NY Times that's almost too unbelievable to be true, a married couple of Wall Street investors—quite possibly the coolest eccentric rich parents currently living in America—had their Upper East Side residence custom retrofitted by a brilliant designer to hold more secret compartments, puzzles, games, and hidden treasures than Hogwarts Academy, all to delight their four young children. Beyond that, the apartment "even comes with its own book"— which Everything Is Illuminated author Jonathan Safran Foer was specially commissioned to compose—and its own soundtrack. Browsing the slide show tour is as mindblowing as it is mindbending, which, we suppose, makes it somehow fitting that Paramount has purchased the article for J.J. Abrams to adapt into a feature film:
Writers Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky have been hired to adapt it into a film, with Marc Evans overseeing for the studio.
Forbes and Wolodarsky, repped by ICM (which also handles rights for the Times), have TV comedy backgrounds — Forbes wrote on "The Larry Sanders Show" and Wolodarsky on "The Simpsons." They most recently wrote the Rainn Wilson comedy "The Rocker," due for release in August from Fox Atomic, and worked on "Monsters vs. Aliens," due for release in March from DreamWorks Animation.
Clearly, Paramount is seeing dollar-sign-shaped puffs of smoke floating out the chimney of this house of puzzling delights—a future classic that might one day stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Narnia, Pan's Labyrinth, Spiderwick, and the like. Perhaps they're even thinking franchise: If the story's heroes manage to solve the Mystery of the Really Expensive Upper East Side Townhouse by movie's end, the parents can always have the interior demolished and an entirely new cryptic design put up in its place.
[Photo Credit: NY Times]
- Mystery on Fifth Avenue [NY Times]
- J.J. Abrams to produce 'Mystery' [THR]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
queensissy
Posted 9:01 AM 19/6/08
I don't know how cool the rich people are. According to the article, the designer had to finally send them a note telling them to look around harder before they noticed any of the puzzles, even though a little kid had already found an encrypted message in the radiator cover.
queensissy
Benovite
Posted 8:50 AM 19/6/08
That couple have been playing Myst for tooo long.
Benovite
lolacat(ΩΜ)
Posted 8:49 AM 19/6/08
Rich people are so weird. And they read "The DaVinci Code" too many times.
lolacat(ΩΜ)
Seth
Posted 9:25 AM 19/6/08
@hughman: Ah, Hughman. What would I ever do without your eagle-eye to correct my every lazy late-afternoon oversight.
Seth
hughman
Posted 9:17 AM 19/6/08
just for the record, Jonathan Foer actually turned down the architect and it was written by others. (per the NYT).
hughman
Juancho
Posted 10:00 AM 19/6/08
If J.J. adapts this, I predict the first puzzle will turn out promising, but he'll be distracted by more shiny puzzles around puzzle two, so by puzzle five the whole thing will not make much sense...but he'll have made a boatload of cash off people dumb enough to watch the thing.
Juancho
brilliantmistake
Posted 9:58 AM 19/6/08
That apartment is awesome. The closest I get to mysteries is losing my keys.
brilliantmistake
hughman
Posted 9:45 AM 19/6/08
@Seth:
tee hee. sorry, it seems like i've been down a lot on you lately (well... twice lately). but you know je t'adore and am not at all trying to be snarky.
hughman
BScrivner
Posted 11:58 AM 19/6/08
The NYT is really getting their money's worth out of that agent. Of course, the ManDate movie is in turnaround.
BScrivner
CourageousCoward
Posted 11:36 AM 19/6/08
You had me at "puzzles."
CourageousCoward
Gilbekat
Posted 1:11 PM 19/6/08
@Benovite: Myst...havent played that since like 97 on our old mac. I need to play it again. I was so lost after like 2 minutes before and would just click everything
Gilbekat
gwendemarco
Posted 1:43 PM 19/6/08
Steve, Maureen, can I simply get my fucking glass of fucking Chardonnay? I don't care about the number of newt toes represented in the bottom of the fucking bidet. No, I can't spell Bee-all-ze-bub. Give me my drink now goddammit or I'm going to the coop board and tell them that you are not Methodist but Satanists.
gwendemarco
Pomalina
Posted 3:54 PM 19/6/08
@Tiger_Tanaka: OMG! Time Travel! I'm so there.
That would be Narnia house, though, wouldn't it? Or is that time AND space?
I'm gonna start messing with my apartment now. Fuck the security deposit.
Pomalina
Pomalina
Posted 3:51 PM 19/6/08
@Gilbekat: I was thinking the same thing...(were you in Chicago, too?)...and thought, "Oh good. I'm not the only ancient one still on this board." Thanks, that.
This house needs a re-enactment/re-imagining of the Clue movie inside. Surely they could throw some cash at that cast for a party or something?
Pomalina
Tiger_Tanaka
Posted 3:51 PM 19/6/08
@Juancho: And if any of the puzzles involve time travel, I'm going to kick him in the balls.
Tiger_Tanaka
CatherineTrammell
Posted 4:41 PM 19/6/08
My parents called this "the basement" when I was growing up.
CatherineTrammell
Benovite
Posted 1:36 AM 20/6/08
@Gilbekat: Wasn't there a Myst movie in the making?
@gwendemarco: "Goddammit! I just wanted to flush the toilet and a secret panel opened, a gnome jumped out and stole my shoe!"
Benovite
ophthalmologist
Posted 6:20 AM 21/6/08
Any couple who drops $8.5 mil for a dwelling is de facto cool, because having buckets of money makes you automatically cool. Working for Bear Stearns like mom did helps too.
These uber cool parents paid the designer $1.26 million; he begged, borrowed and stole from his collaborators to get the job done. Literally. His friends were not paid.
Take from fellow artists, give to the rich...is there anything more brilliant than that?
ophthalmologist
juniperjenny
Posted 11:04 AM 21/6/08
Reminds me more of "The Seventh Guest", another creepy PC game. I dreamed about this article last night - that a bunch of ogres attacked my house because I removed a piece of stone from the ledge above the fireplace. It all worked out in the end.
juniperjenny