Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer will star in the Michael Radford-helmed English-language remake of “Elsa & Fred.” Based on the 2005 Argentinian film, the remake will move its setting to New Orleans with “MacLaine as Elsa, a gregarious fun-loving retiree, who takes a shine to Plummer’s character, a stick-in-the-mud widower, Fred, who moves into her apartment building, but just wants to be left alone.” The film begins shooting this December in New Orleans and Rome. [Variety]
Mark Strong will not stop until he appears in everything. The “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” actor will appear opposite Nicole Kidman in Rowan Joffe’s sophomore directorial outing, “Before I Go To Sleep.” The film, based on S.J. Watson’s bestselling book, follows “a north London woman (Kidman) who wakes up every morning remembering nothing. Her husband tells her she suffered a trauma, and that she dare not leave home. She sneaks off to a doctor (Strong) who gives her a small digital recorder and urges her to play back her thoughts day after day in hopes of re-integrating her mind. She does and it works, and that’s when she comes to realize that the man sleeping next to her isn’t her husband.” Filming is tentatively scheduled for early next year. [Variety]
The Australian omnibus film “The Turning,” based on Tim Winton’s novel, has landed a trio of Australian actors. Rose Byrne, Hugo Weaving and Miranda Otto have the joined the sprawling film, which will have segments directed by Cate Blanchett and Mia Wasikowska, among others. Each segment will be separate and there’s no word which segments the actors will appear in. Most recent anthology films have typically played primarily to film festival audiences so perhaps keep an eye out for “The Turning” to surface sometime during the fall next year. [THR]