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Martin Scorsese Looks to Direct The Invention of Hugo Cabret

by Ethan Anderton
January 22, 2010

Since the prospect of Martin Scorsese directing an adaptation of Brian Selznick's best-selling children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret has been gestating since 2007, this isn't exactly groundbreaking news. However, Variety's confirmation means that Scorsese is finally making serious moves to get the project off the ground. The trade points out the interesting recent trend of high profile directors tackling children's material (i.e. Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox and Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are), however, Scorsese's hyper-violent and dark style makes him the most unlikely to fall into the trend.

The story will take Scorsese back to 1930's Paris, France where the story centers on a 12-year-old orphan named Hugo who finds himself living in a train station, and still dedicated to his late father's ambition to solve the mystery of a broken robot. The book has been a longtime best-seller and it's illustrations have not only received praised in the literary world (winning the Randolph Caldecott medal in 2008), but by filmmakers for closely resembling movie storyboard frames.

It's interesting to note that despite stepping into unfamiliar territory, Scorsese is not collaborating with any well-known filmmakers of family-friendly-fare, but rather working with familiar colleagues like Graham King (who produced The Departed) and John Logan (who wrote The Aviator). Seeing Scorsese tackle children's literature has definitely peaked my interest, and I'm glad to see one of the best filmmakers working today taking it on, rather than a mediocre family-friendly director like Ice Age's Chris Wedge (who was once attached). What do you guys think of Scorsese's dive into children's literature?

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