With neither Angelina Jolie's "In The Land Of Blood And Honey" or Luc Besson's "The Lady" looking like big awards season players this year, it seems the pair have decided to say "Fuck it" to chasing statues and are going to go back in getting some asses in seats.
Deadline reports that Jolie's next film will be an unspecified "dramatic thriller" that Besson will direct. There are no plot details at the moment, but the film will apparently harken back to Besson's glory years work like "The Professional," "La Femme Nikita" and "The Fifth Element." It will apparently contain "scientfic elements" and it's moving fast, with a spring shoot being eyed. A stateside studio is expected to land the Europacorp produced film soon.
Besson teased about this project way back in 2010, when he said he was aiming for a 2013-2014 release (which seems doable) and that movie was going to be ' 'The Fifth Element' to the power of 10.' Damn.
So what does this mean for stuff like "Cleopatra," "Maleficient" and the recently announced "Gertrude Bell" biopic? It's all going on the backburner for the moment, though the latter film is expected to find a studio home soon, likely with the Besson project.
And while it may seem pretty awesome that Jolie and Besson are pairing up, just a couple of notes. Jolie's last couple efforts at multiplex fare were the turgid "The Tourist" and the ridiculous (though succesful) "Salt" (which Sony would like to make a sequel to). And Besson hasn't exercised his old school action muscles in quite a long time, though his hand in producing stuff like "Taken" and this year's "Colombiana" (itself, more or less an unofficial sequel to "The Professional") has at least kept his head in the game. Jolie + Besson…you've got some expectations to live up to guys.