Good news for those of you — like us — who appreciate the mid-budgeted adult drama (please don’t go the way of the dodo bird). The Anton Corbijn-directed, Rowan Joffe-penned suspense thriller “The American”is locked and ready for test screenings according to Corbijn himself (via Rope of Silicon). In case you’ve forgotten this one, we’ve covered “The American” several times in the past, when it was still titled“A Very Private Gentleman.” Based on the novel by Martin Booth, the film stars George Clooney as an assassin hiding out in Italy, biding time for a final hit while taking on a false identity as a painter. The picture also features European actors Thekla Reuten (“In Bruges”) — she’s likely the love interest — Bruce Altman, Paolo Bonacelli, and Violante Placido, and has “The Men Who Stare At Goats” director Grant Heslov on board as a producer (he and Clooney have a production company together and are obviously tight).
Corbijn also sarcastically notes the confusion about what a “test screening” is. He writes: “What the hell is a ‘test screening’ exactly? No idea. I didn’t do one for CONTROL but it is very common in the States so there we go.” Sarcasm is obviously implied, as Corbijn is an industry veteran, with over two decades of professional photography and the much lauded Ian Curtis bio-pic “Control” under his belt. That said, this is only his second feature-length film and sorry, this is just how it works sometimes.
According to the post, the picture, which was shot on HD, is currently being sound edited and color graded. Corbijn also drops Herbert Gronemeyer’s name as the composer; Gronemeyer being a good friend of Corbijn’s and has scored a few German films (“Das Boot” being the most well known one) while maintaining a very successful career as a solo artist.
ROP speculates that with the film mostly completed it will likely appear at Cannes, but that seems doubtful to us. You don’t start test screening a film to audiences before you show it at Cannes. “The American” is set for a September 1, 2010 release. Clooney’s next gig will take him to Hawaii and he’ll be shooting what appears to be his favorite (and our) type of movie: the aforementioned modestly budgeted adult drama, this time with Alexander Payne for the film, “The Descendants” which also stars Judy Greer, Robert Forster, Beau Bridges and Matthew Lillard. — Mark Zhuravsky