I chatted with director Joe Carnahan a couple days ago, to promote the home video release of The Grey, certainly one of the better films of 2012 thus far, and of course I lobbed him some quick questions about other projects. One was White Jazz, an adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel that George Clooney was at one point attached to star in. He’s been laboring for around half a dozen years to get it off the ground, but I feel like I jinxed Carnahan back when Bunny Lake Is Missing, another film he was set to direct, fell apart in the spring of 2007, and I joked that White Jazz would be next to disintegrate. Sorry about that, Joe.

He’s still hoping to eventually get it to the screen, however. “Every time I make a movie it’s like, ‘Why didn’t you make White Jazz?,'” admits Carnahan. “I’m actually hoping Gangster Squad does gangbuster business (in September) so we can draft off that film and finally get this movie made, because it’s a period film. I just think it’s incredibly difficult because that character, the Klein character, is such a tricky bit of business. I’m almost waiting for someone like Chris Pine to be old enough to play Klein, because back when Chris and I started talking about this he was going to play Junior Stemmons, and now it’s at the point where if I wait a few more years Chris can play Dave Klein. I really want to make it, both that and Pablo — it’s in the canon of movies that I really want to make, that’s the triptych along with The Grey. I’m really trying, but it’s just hard — there’s five guys that will bankroll that film and they’re all busy at all times.”

For a link to the more robust chat with Carnahan on The Grey, click here.