With the announcement only a few days, director Danny Boyle has already found a star for his next project. He is currently in talks with Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds, Jane Eyre) to join his art heist thriller Trance. [THR, Variety]
The modestly budgeted film (think Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours) is actually a remake of Joe Ahearne‘s 2001 British thriller of the same name. Ahearne has worked on Doctor Who and This Life, as well as creator of Ultraviolet and Apparitions. Described in the “dark, sexy, hard-edged tone of Boyle films like Shallow Grave and Trainspotting,” check out a synopsis below. Fassbender would be playing “the shady leader of the gang who partners with the assistant.”
An assistant at an auction house masterminds the heist and teams up with a gang of thieves, but suffers a blow to the head and wakes up with amnesia. He is the only one who knows where the painting’s location is and after his continued failure to remember, the gang begins to suspect duplicity on his part and hire a female hypnotist to get into his brain.
Boyle, and his producing partner Christian Colson, plan a different kind of production schedule. He will have a London shoot this fall, then take a break to direct the opening 2012 Summer Olympics ceremony. He will then return to the film and edit it for a March 2013 release. Many films are on such a tight production schedule, it will be interesting to see what this extended break can help in the formation of the film.
Boyle and Colson are currently talking to Fox Searchlight and Pathe about distribution. As for Fassbender, he is one of the biggest rising stars, playing Magneto in Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class next month. He also has Steven Soderbergh‘s Haywire, David Cronenberg‘s A Dangerous Method, Steve McQueen‘s Shame, and is currently shooting Ridley Scott‘s sci-fi epic Prometheus.
What do you think about Fassbender joining the film? Do you want to see Boyle’s take on a heist film?