Is Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five En Route to the Big Screen?

Guillermo del Toro’s latest project, Pacific Rim, will make its way to the big screen this Friday. But that’s hardly the sole reason he’s buzzworthy this week.

Hoosiers, movie enthusiasts, and surely those who fall into both camps are practically falling off the edges of their cinema seats as they wait for confirmation: Will one of Hollywood’s most-prized screenwriters, Charlie Kaufman, team up with the movie director for the next big novel-turned-film, a visual retelling of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five? Del Toro sure hopes so, and we do, too. He told Paste magazine, “Charlie Kaufman is a very expensive writer”—and yet fans would likely argue he’s well worth every cent. Kaufman has penned some great films over time, including 1999’s Being John Malkovich and Adaptation in 2002. Thankfully, director del Toro—who interestingly helmed 2006 fantasty/horror picture Pan’s Labyrinth—says he’s intent on making this team work. Even so, the tandem notably lacks a script at present.

Slaughterhouse-Five—a time-jumping sci-fi story set largely in Dresden, Germany, during World War II—harbors great potential as a film, of course. It largely draws on the iconic author’s own experience as a prisoner of Nazi forces during World War II. From alien characters dubbed Tralfamadorians to protagonist Billy Pilgrim’s near-death plane crash, this fantastical-historical tale would surely make the most levity-laden of splashes in theaters. That is, if it does get made. And if it doesn’t? Well, as Vonnegut himself would write, so it goes.

Say the book does make its leap to the silver screen: What do you most hope to see? Or is this a bad idea?

Del Toro photo via Facebook