Fox Searchlight buys Palahniuk adaptation ‘Choke’

Yes, in the distributor buying game called the Sundance Film Festival, Fox Searchlight has purchased director Clark Gregg’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Choke. Why should you care? Well for starters, because Choke is the fourth novel by writer Palahniuk (pronounced “Paula-Nick”), who is also responsible for the cult favorite Fight Club. ChuckPalahniuk.net reports the 2 million dollar indie film stars Sam Rockwell (Assassination of Jesse James, Joshua), Kelly MacDonald (No Country For Old Men, Trainspotting) and Angelica Houston (you should know this), and sold to Fox Searchlight for 5 million.

The film follows Victor Mancini, med-school dropout and sex addict, as he struggles to pay for his mother’s hospital care by pretending to choke in crowded restaurants, making heroes of strangers and exploiting their continued kindness once he’s made them look good. Director Clark spoke about his feelings on the original novel to slashfilm.com:

“…there was something about it that felt painfully familiar and really unusual in the way it represented sexuality as another thing — that is a consumer obsession in this country — and it worked for me on those political levels. At the same time I found it to be a really heartbreaking story about how people recover from emotional trauma in their lives and that makes them able to give and receive love.”

The film adaptations of two other Palahniuk novels, Survivor and Invisible Monsters have been in production hell for years, so here’s hoping success with Choke will get them off the ground.

p.s. The film also stars Brad Henke, who was in Miranda July’s You And Me And Everyone We Know, which if you haven’t seen yet you should probably do something about immediately.