Cameron Crowe used to be a powerful name. The man made Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous and Vanilla Sky as well as writing Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Hell he even won an Oscar but since the poorly received Elizabethtown he has all but disappeared. Curiousity getting the better of me I set out, via Google, to find out what he is doing now.
To be fair Crowe has taken four year breaks between releases twice before but it has been five years since Elizabethtown failed to impress the critics. While his most recent work was far from great Crowe has an impressive and varied back catalogue that has a significant presence in pop culture and maybe even film history so it seems odd that he should be banished from the industry for a single dud, though Vanilla Sky did also received mixed reviews.
Back in 2008 it was announced that Crowe was to write and direct Deep Tiki starring Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon but the filming was set to start in January 2009 and has yet to begin, I doubt it ever will. Instead it seems he has returned to his first passion, music.
It was revealed just last week that Crowe has spent the last three and a half years working on a biopic about Motown singer Marvin Gaye, struggling to find the right budget and a star to take the lead role. During my investigating I also read that Crowe has been working for years with Pearl Jam on a retrospective movie for their 20th anniversary .
It appears that while Cameron Crowe has nothing shooting right now or anything ready to release he has been keeping busy on two different projects that combine his love for film and for music. I hope that either one manages to rise out of development hell.
This is the man that first introduced us to Zooey Deschanel, he deserves a second chance.
Mild Concern 