Emily Browning is set to lead the production of Julia Leigh’s 2008 Black Listed script, “Sleeping Beauty” which will also serve as Leigh’s directorial debut.
Don’t let the title fool you but, the film is described as “a haunting erotic fairy tale about a student who drifts into prostitution and finds her niche as a woman who sleeps, drugged, in a ‘Sleeping Beauty chamber’ while men do to her what she can‘t remember the next morning.”
Browning replaces fellow up and coming Australian Mia Wasikowska who has presumably moved onto bigger and better things having completed Tim Burton’s “Alice In Wonderland” and Lisa Chodolenko’s Sundance sensation “The Kids Are All Right” as well as working on Gus Van Sant’s “Restless” and Cary Fukunaga’s “Jane Eyre.
Wasikowska’s pretty much a younger, female Sam Worthington who’s using her blockbuster breakout role to go the indie-route instead. Nevertheless, Browning again comes in at the 11th hour having just recently completed Zack Snyder’s “Sucker Punch” of which she was also a late replacement for Amanda Seyfried.
Production is slated to begin in Australia next month with a $10 million budget. Update: Our Aussie writer spotted this in The Australian, forgot to provide a link and it was missed in an AM edit (the editor could not speak to the writer because of the time zone difference). We regret the omission.