At Venice, he’ll premiere one of our most-anticipated films of fall, the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds documentary One More Time With Feeling, and now it looks like we’ll be getting another Andrew Dominik film sooner than expected. After developing his Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde for the better part of the last decade, it looks like things are finally coming together.
Buried at the bottom of an interview with Anne Thompson, Dominik confirms rumors that Netflix is backing the film, with New Regency Pictures and Plan B previously on board. While Jessica Chastain was previously set to star, and Naomi Watts before her, Dominik says neither are attached anymore and that he’ll cast a new actress, to be announced this January.
Based on the Joyce Carol Oates novel, he told us, “Blonde‘s interesting because it has very little dialogue in it. My previous three movies have relied on a lot of talking and I don’t think there’s a scene in Blonde that’s longer than two pages. I’m really excited about doing a movie that’s an avalanche of images and events. It’s just a different way. It’s a different thing for me to do. And the main character is female. My films are fairly bereft of woman and now I’m imagining what it’s like to be one.”
He adds, “My idea with the film is to make something a little more accessible than what I’ve done before. It moves a bit faster.” Despite Frank Ocean recently making its SEO possibilities difficult, we can’t wait to get more details on the drama, which should kick off production next year.
Check out the Amazon synopsis for Joyce Carol Oates’ novel below:
One of America’s most acclaimed novelists boldly re-imagines one of America’s most enduring icons in Blonde—the National Book Award-nominated bestseller by Joyce Carol Oates. The legend of Marilyn Monroe—aka Norma Jeane Baker—comes provocatively alive in this powerful tale of Hollywood myth and heartbreaking reality. Marilyn Monroe lives—reborn to tell her untold history; her story of a star created to shine brightest in the Hollywood firmament before her fall to earth. Blonde is a dazzling fictional portrait of the intricate inner life of the idolized and desired movie star as only the inimitable Joyce Carol Oates could paint it.
Who do you think should be cast as Marilyn Monroe?