With Berlin Film Festival kicking off this week, so is European Film Market, which is announcing a variety of projects in various stages of production. First up is a new crime thriller titled Men with No Fear, which has Nicolas Cage in the lead role. Produced by Bryan Singer, director Paco Cabezas will helm the project, which follows Marty “The Mule,” a recently released inmate who attempts to get revenge of his former crime boss. There’s no news yet of when project might kick off, but the duo of Cabezas and Cage recently teamed on Tokarev, which will likely be released this year. [Variety]
In other casting news, Albert Nobbs director Rodrigo Garcia is putting together his next film and has found his main ensemble. Ewan McGregor, Tye Sheridan (The Tree of Life, Mud), Ciarán Hinds and Ayelet Zurer will team for Last Days in the Desert. McGregor will lead the film as both a “holy man and a demon” who is trekking through the desert and must confront his own fate when he meets a family. Production kicks off this month, and perhaps most notably, Emmanuel Lubezki will shoot the film, coming off Gravity and To the Wonder. [Deadline]
Next up, Gary Oldman has long since been looking to mount his next directorial effort, the Eadweard Muybridge biopic Flying Horse, and while financing is still awaited, we have a new cast member. According to Up and Comers, Amanda Seyfried has joined the ensemble, likely playing the wife of Muybridge (Ralph Fiennes), who was having an affair with a theater critic (Benedict Cumberbatch). The true story then takes a crime thriller twist, as the pioneering director murders the man. Hopefully this one gets financing soon, because I’d love to see Oldman’s take.
In other Seyfried-related news, she already has Russell Crowe and Aaron Paul in her Fathers and Daughters ensemble, but now a few more names have been added. According to Variety, Octavia Spencer, Diane Kruger, and Beasts of the Southern Wild star Quvenzhane Wallis have all come aboard the project, which is set to be directed by Gabriele Muccino. Scripted by Brad Desch, the story spans a quarter of a decade in New York, as we follow Crowe, troubled by mental illness, trying to raise his daughter, then we jump 25 years to Seyfried as the daughter, who is battling with her past. Spencer plays a present-day psychiatrist, with Wallis as one of her patients, while Kruger takes the role of sister-in-law to Crowe’s character.
Moving on to blockbuster territory, Alexandra Daddario, coming off her supporting turn in True Detective, has booked a lead role in San Andreas. She’ll star alongside Dwayne Johnson in the Brad Peyton-directed film, as his daughter, who he tries to reconnect with and rescue after a major earthquake strikes down in California. With a June 2015 release date penciled in by Warner Bros, expect production to kick off soon. [Deadline]
Last but not least is likely our most-anticipated project of the batch, which is Kill List and Sightseers director Ben Wheatley‘s adaptation of the late JG Ballard‘s 1975 novel High Rise, coming from a script by frequent collaborator Amy Jump. He’s announced on Twitter that Tom Hiddleston will lead the film, a satirical story tracking people in a tower block that descend into chaos. With production kicking off in June, check out the first teaser poster from Jay Shaw below, along with a synopsis.
Set in a luxury high-rise building, the book follows a group of affluent tenants hell-bent on an orgy of destruction. Cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on ‘enemy’ floors and the once-luxurious amenities become an arena for technological mayhem. Human society slips into violent reverse as the inhabitants of the ultra-modern high-rise, driven by primal urges, recreate a world ruled by the laws of the jungle.
Which of the above projects are you most looking forward to?