I thought she was bland and uninteresting as the lead in Alice In Wonderland and much more lively in the overrated The Kids Are All Right, but given the star wattage from the latter’s recent Golden Globes wins, it’s not surprising that Mia Wasikowska is said to be juggling competing potential projects for her next role, the scheduling of either quite likely depending on her casting.
The two projects are interestingly different: a Prohibition-era crime drama from The Road director John Hillcoat (and scripted by his writer on The Proposition, great Australian singer-songwriter-maestro of gloom Nick Cave), called The Wettest County In The World and Stoker, a “fantastical, fairy-tale like family drama” from Prison Break star Wentworth Miller, (who has apparently written a prequel called Uncle Charlie under the pen name Ted Foulke – according to this article from The Playlist, anyway). [IndieWire, via Variety]
TFS’s Jordan Raup gave us an overview of the late-2010 version of Hillcoat’s Wettest County, which IndieWire describes thusly:
The film centers on the story of three brothers— Forrest, Howard and Jack in order of age and toughness —running a bootlegging gang during Prohibition whose moonshine dynasty in Franklin County, Virginia is threatened by the authorities wanting a cut.
Amy Adams, Ryan Gosling and Scarlett Johansson were originally cast, but that incarnation fell through. Now, Tom Hardy and Shia LeBeouf are in, and one can only presume that Wasikowska would play a love interest of some kind. Wasikowska’s involvement would seemingly displace Carey Mulligan but there is no confirmation who’s in or out at this point.
On the other end of the genre-spectrum is Wentworth “Who Knew He Could Write?” Miller’s Stoker, which, as Deadline reported last year, is:
…the story of an eccentric teen whose enigmatic and estranged uncle who returns to the family after the death of the girl’s father.
Miller’s pseudonym Ted Foulke has penned Uncle Charlie, a prequel to the bizarro project, and reportedly had Mulligan and Jodie Foster attached to star, with Ridley Scott (!) supposedly in line to direct. No word just who is displacing who, but if you were betting, put your money on Hillcoat’s less-oddball (and thus comforting to skittish creative executives) bootlegging chronicle as a safer choice for Wasikowska.
What do you think of these projects competing for Mia’s time? Which one would you rather see her in?