All of a sudden there are two Great Expectations films in the works

By Sean O'Neal | April 14, 2011 | 5:04pm

Aux Features Film

It’s been more than a decade since Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations has been adapted to film with a little help from Gwyneth Paltrow, Tori Amos, and The Verve Pipe, so in increasingly typical, modern Hollywood tradition, there are now two such projects in development, competing for your attention like young, would-be gentlemen fighting over a vain and cruel little debutante. The first, a more straightforward version under the direction of Mike Newell, will likely feature Jeremy Irvine—the young British actor chosen by Steven Spielberg to play the non-horse role in War Horse—starring as Pip, whose innocence is toyed with by Helena Bonham Carter’s Miss Havisham, a role the perpetually bedraggled Carter was seemingly born to play. No doubt Carter will bring her own mice-riddled wedding cake from home.

The second is actually an adaptation of the Lloyd Jones novel Mister Pip, in which House star Hugh Laurie will play a teacher—the last white man left on the island of Bougainville—who bonds with his students by reading them Dickens’ classic. Of course, these days having only two Great Expectations projects in development is relatively lacking in ambition, so there’s still time to prep your own version. Perhaps one where Pip is a small-time hood who rises through the ranks of the drug game to escape the shame of his humble beginnings—you could call it Get That Paper.