Remember the filmmaking brothers Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz? Their career together started strong with a box office smash American Pie (1999) and a well-loved modest hit About a Boy (2002). The brothers soon went solo as directors though they kept working together, producing and what not. Their subsequent work didn't capture the zeitgeist in the same way though there were sure-fire sequel hits (Little Fockers, The Twilight Saga: New Moon) a troubled attempted franchise (The Golden Compass) a few well received smaller pictures (A Better Life, Grandma) and an award winning TV series (Mozart in the Jungle). Their next project, their first co-directing gig in ages will be a biopic of their Mexican film star grandmother Lupita Tovar (pictured left) and it sounds just great...
Because of our long running "200 oldest living film stars" list we already knew that the brothers were descended from actresses...
It wasn't just Tovar. Their mother is Oscar-nominated actress Susan Kohner (Imitation of Life). The family obviously has strong genes; their grandmother lived to be 106 years old (passing way in 2016). Before her early retirement Tovar had made a very successful transition to the talkies and her most famous films are Santa (1932) and the Spanish language version of the classic Universal horror picture Dracula (1931) which was filmed in English and Spanish simultaneously -- a short-lived but common practice as sound films were getting their footing.
The brothers are planning a movie of her life called Spanish Dracula centered on both that film's fascinating production (The English language version of the movie would shoot during the day while the Spanish version would use the same sets and costumes and film at night.) and their Catholic grandmother's romance with their grandfather Paul Kohner, a Jewish immigrant from Austria, who was in charge of Universal's international division. That's really a story that hasn't been all that oft-told about Old Hollywood, the major influx of performers and talent from all over the world who started new lives in Hollywood. They're writing the screenplay now so this is still some time away but we wish them luck. It could be marvelous.