After quashing rumors that he was set to direct the remake of the 1964 musical, “My Fair Lady” written and produced by Duncan Kenworthy, Emma Thompson and Cameron Mackintosh (which Danny Boyle also passed on), British filmmaker Joe Wright (“Atonement,” “Pride & Prejudice”) looks like he has his “The Soloist” follow-up locked down.
Wright has worked at least twice now with Focus Features (“Atonement,” “Pride & Prejudice”), and appears to be returning to the fold after the misstep that was Universal’s ‘Soloist’ (a decent script, but a mess of an uneven movie).
The director is in talks to take on “Hanna,” according to DealMemo, which sounds like a very distinct change of pace and centers on a “bad-ass,” 14-year-old girl who uses the survival skills taught to her from her ex-U.S. military father to survive a Swedish wilderness, and battle U.S. intelligence agencies while she treks across Europe to be reunited with her dad.
Uhh, wow. That is so not the teacup period dramas we’re used to from Wright and therefore could be interesting. Then again, “The Soloist” was a detour as well. Still, it sounds pretty interesting coming from him. Any average director took this and we’d file it away under generic spy, action thriller (see something bland and awful like, “Whiteout”) but he has a nice touch and should bring an interesting sensibility to this genre.
So, Saoirse Ronan for the lead maybe? Could you imagine her in a role like that? It seems unthinkable, but anything’s possible. Ronan also seems like a good fit for the teenage girl in the Coen Brother’s “True Grit.” We’ll see what her American accent is like in Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones.”
Update: Interesting, the Hollywood Reporter has more info and calls it an assassin film that’s a cross between, “La Femme Nikita” and the “Bourne” movies. Uhh, so it’s like the younger female version of Steven Soderbergh’s “Knockout” starring Gina Carano which has been described as a cross between ‘Nikita’ and ‘Bourne’ as well (and a few other films including Bond)?
The have more story details:
…centers on a 14-year-old Eastern European girl who has been raised by her father to be a cold-blooded killing machine. She connects with a French family, forms a friendship with their daughter and goes through the pangs of adolescence. When the girl is dragged back to her father’s world and discovers that she was bred as a killer in a CIA prison camp, she must fight her way to a free life.
Apparently Danny Boyle and Alfonso Cuarón (“Children Of Men”) were recently interested. Man, even more off Wright’s normal radar. The director however, is probably eager to get some new project on the go and this creative left turn might be just the thing. His adaptation of “Indian Summer” starring Cate Blanchett, was supposed to shoot next year, but the project was expensive enough (relatively) for this climate and controversial enough (to the Indian government) that it had to be shelved for now. We hope he can resurrect it one day as it sounds very much in his wheelhouse.
This is definitely a different kind of project for Focus as well. We wonder what the budget is and presume it’s not higher than $25 million (which is also being very, very generous).