David Gordon Green's film adaptation of the acclaimed "A Confederacy of Dunces," with Will Ferrell and Drew Barrymore, was cancelled recently. This week, famed critic Roger Ebert asked Green about the reasons behind the cutoff and the filmmaker responded in his Answerman column:

"To the disappointment of many of us, 'Dunces' was put on hold last year. We had assembled the cast of my dreams (Will Ferrell, Lily Tomlin, Mos Def, Drew Barrymore, Olympia Dukakis, etc.) and I adopted New Orleans as my new home, but politics over the property rights -- torn between Miramax, Paramount, and various camps of producers -- put a weight on the project that wasn't creatively healthy to work within.

The draft of the script by Scott Kramer and Steven Soderbergh did the novel justice, and also provided a healthy cinematic spotlight for these eccentric characters, but it didn't cater to a lot of the cliches or conditioning of contemporary American studio sensibilities. So I suppose the difficulty was even beyond the political baggage and paperwork, and stemmed in many ways from the manner in which I wanted the film to be executed.

I believe in the dramatic foundation and comedic highlights of these characters and am not interested in the cartoon version of obvious comedy that has often been pushed for. I have yet to develop a project within the studio system that has been made, for whatever stubborn resistance to compromise on my part with the machine.

That being said, many of the rights issues have since expired and from what I am told, Paramount holds all consideration on their own shoulders. That at least simplifies the objective. I am hopeful, with the new names and faces over there under Brad Grey, that Kramer, Soderbergh and I can again arm-wrestle some enthusiasm.

Scott Kramer is the die-hard producer who has been with the project since before the book's publication. The history of the book and various efforts for a filmed version make an epic of their own. My hope is that we get our paws on the flick, and Kramer writes his memoirs of the whole deal."

Thanks to 'Josh'.