Catwoman's French Kiss
IGN FilmForce has learned who may be directing the feline femme fatale's film.
March 14, 2002 - Sources in the know have advised IGN FilmForce that Warner Brothers is inching closer to selecting a director for their big-screen adaptation of DC Comics' Catwoman, which has Ashley Judd attached to star. The rumor mill previously linked director Kinka Usher (Mystery Men) with the hot project but our sources suggest that Usher may no longer be in the running. Instead, the French filmmaker who calls himself simply Pitof (born Jean-Christophe Comar) has now apparently become "the favorite" to occupy the director's chair.
Pitof made his feature film directing debut on the recently released Vidocq, a French period piece starring G?rard Depardieu. Vidocq is noteworthy for being the first major release to be shot entirely on the Sony-Panavision digital video format that George Lucas developed for his Star Wars prequels. Pitof advised The London Sunday Observer last September that shooting the first all-digital feature film "is the first step towards the cinema of the future. It certainly makes it a very different thing to do to make a film – post-production, by which I mean editing and inserting special effects, becomes just as important as the actual filming."
According to Vidocq's official site, "Pitof is a director, special effects supervisor, editor, and musician, all rolled into one. He began his career in 1979 as an assistant director and editor on corporate films, commercials, and feature films. Pioneer of the digital image in France, he broke into the world of special effects in 1986 ... In addition to this, Pitof created a computer program designed to generate multi-resolution digital special effects for feature films."
Pitof cut his teeth on numerous commercials and videos, and later served as the digital effects supervisor on such genre films as The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The Visitors, and Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar. He was a second unit director on Alien: Resurrection. He also worked with Alien director Jean-Pierre Jeunet on Delicatessan and The City of Lost Children.
Just to clarify, folks. This report doesn't mean that Pitof has the Catwoman directing gig for certain. Like our source said, right now he's just the studio's "favorite."
Catwoman will be produced by Denise DiNovi (Batman Returns). The original script was penned by Kate Kondell with a rewrite by John Rogers.