Almost immediately after the monumental sleeper success of “Juno” a little over two years ago, the film’s BFFs Ellen Page and Olivia Thirlby began talking up a potential reunion. The pair were set to star in “Jack & Diane,” from writer/director Bradley Rust Gray (“The Exploding Girl”), which follows “two teenage lesbians, [who] meet in New York City and spend the night kissing ferociously. Diane’s charming innocence quickly begins to open Jack’s tough skinned heart. But when Jack discovers that Diane is leaving the country in a week, she tries to push her away. Diane must struggle to keep their love alive while hiding the secret that her newly awakened sexual desire occasionally turns her into a werewolf.”
Page left the project for unknown reasons last year, and was replaced by Allison Pill (“Milk,” the upcoming “Scott Pilgrim”), but Bloody Disgusting bring news that Pill has now moved on herself, and will be replaced by Juno Temple. Temple, the daughter of punk documentarian Julien Temple (“The Filth and the Fury,” “Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten”), has had small roles in films like “Atonement,” “The Other Boleyn Girl” and “Notes on a Scandal,” but has graduated to higher profile parts more recently, playing Michael Cera’s love interest in “Year One” and taking a supporting role in Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg.” She also took the veritable school girl lead in Jordan Scott’s “Cracks” alongside Eva Green.
Thirlby, who hasn’t yet followed through on the huge potential she showed in “Juno” and “The Wackness,” is still attached, and will play Jack, while Temple will play Diane. While werewolves are slightly overdone these days (even the lyncanthropy-as-metaphor-for-female-sexuality theme was done previously in “Ginger Snaps”), Rust Gray’s an interesting emerging talent, and his take on the genre seems interesting. He revealed on his official site last year that, “When Diane first discovers love she is desperate to find out if her feelings are being returned. Only she can’t find the words to explain how she feels. Her head gets fuzzy, she gets scared, she panics, and she transforms into a horrifically violent creature. This creature, though grotesque, becomes Diane’s way of saying, ‘I love you so much I want to eat you and put you inside me forever.'”
Reports earlier in the project’s genesis tipped Icelandic band Múm as composers for the project, and the possibility of contribution to some degree from animators The Brothers Quay, but it’s not known if either are still on board. Shooting should finally get underway in May, and, considering how much we like all the talent involved, we look forward to seeing the finished product.