After combining talents for "The Woman On the Fifth," Ethan Hawke and Paris-based Polish helmer Pawel Pawlikowski are set to reunite once more for a gentle black comedy about the making of a film with Sir Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lambert and Russian thesp Chulpan Khamatova also on board.
Titled "Epic," but not to be confused with the helmer's '92 war documentary "Serbian Epics," the film follows the story of a washed-up British director who gets invited to make a national epic in an obscure (and fictitious) Caucasus Republic with Kingsley to play the nation's dictator, Lambert as the film's crazed star and Khamatova as the "beauty and brains" presumably in the movie-in-a-movie. Sounds twisted and hilarious enough, right?
The Georgian-U.K.-Russian-French co-production has earned financing from Eurimages, who is also backing Michel Gondry's upcoming French-language effort starring Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou, among others. No word on when this could begin production but the casting developments are certainly a good sign. Pawlikowski also has a gestating adaptation of "We Are Now Beginning Our Descent" and there's also 60% of "The Restraints of Beasts" sitting somewhere incomplete after Pawlikowski's wife fell ill and tragically passed away during production. [ScreenDaily]