French filmmaker Olivier Assayas is no stranger to English-language films; “Irma Vep,” among others of his films, had substantial English-language segments. But he’s never made something entirely in English, and he’s never come to the U.S. to make something. Until now, that is.
After the back-to-back success of “Summer Hours,” his mini-series/movie “Carlos” and his semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman “Something In The Air,” Assayas is currently prepping a film that looks to be English-language heavy: “Sils Maria,” in which Juliette Binoche will play a version of herself, and in which Mia Wasikowska will also feature. The director told us that “it will be in English and part of the cast will be American,” but it looks like he’s heading Stateside in a big way after that, as Indiewire reveal that the director will make his first U.S.-set film soon, with “Hubris.”
The film is a based-in-fact crime story penned by “Crash” co-writer Bobby Moresco (at least back in the day), based on a 2007 Playboy article called “Boosting The Big Tuna” by Hillel Levin, and was once set up at Universal with Todd Field (“In The Bedroom“) attached to direct. It follows a group of small-time thieves who rob a man who turns out to be Chicago mafia boss Tony Accardo (who was also due to be the basis for a Michael Mann movie called “Big Tuna“ that’s yet to come to pass).
We dug up a bunch of details on the project back in the day, and you can read it over here (beware of spoilers). While we were definitely looking forward to seeing what Field did with the film, Assayas is about as strong a replacement as we can imagine, and we’re looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Shooting will get underway in the second quarter of 2014, once Assayas is done with “Sils Maria” (which suggests that that film might be a possibility for Cannes next year…)