Chuck Palahniuk seeks crowdfunding for “Lullaby” movie

PanARMENIAN.Net - “Fight Club” novelist Chuck Palahniuk has launched a Kickstarter campaign to make a low-budget movie based on his 2002 novel “Lullaby”, Variety reports.

Palahniuk will co-write the screenplay with director Andy Mingo. Josh Leake is producing and Palahniuk will exec produce.

The 30-day campaign to raise $250,000 to fund production launched Tuesday and had raised $31,483 from 390 backers as of 7 p.m. PDT.

“Lullaby” centers on an aging reporter whose family mysteriously died years earlier. Palahniuk wrote the novel during the trial of a man who was convicted of murdering his father.

“This project is also important to Chuck,” the campaign page said. “He began writing ‘Lullaby’ during the trial of his father’s murderer in 1999. The prosecutor came to Chuck and asked him if he wanted to advocate for the death penalty. This idea spawned the culling song, or the power of the word to cast a spell, and the story of ‘Lullaby’ was created.”

Premiums include $30 for the donor’s name in the credits, $45 for a T-shirt, $5,000 to be a featured extra in the film and $15,000 to advertise the donor’s business in the film.

“Chuck doesn’t write for mainstream audiences,” the campaign page also said. “His books challenge everything about mainstream audiences. His novel Lullaby deploys necrophilia, gender-bending, and no-way-would-this-make-it-to-comfortable-TV satire. We want to make a movie that makes people feel uncomfortable enough to think original thoughts again, just like Chuck’s novels do.”

The project will be Palahniuk’s first screenplay. The 1999 movie adaptation of “Fight Club,” which starred Brad Pitt and was directed by David Fincher, grossed $100 million worldwide for Fox.

Palahniuk’s “Choke” was also adapted into a low-budget movie in 2008 with Sam Rockwell starring and Clark Gregg directing. Worldwide grosses totalled $4 million for Fox Searchlight.