In the Works: Hansen-Løve, Kusama, and More

Mia Hansen-Løve is about to begin shooting her sixth feature, Maya, featuring Roman Kolinka (who's worked with Hansen-Løve on Eden, andThings to Come), Aarshi Banerjee, Alex Descas, Judith Chemla, and Johanna ter Steege. Fabien Lemercier reports for Cineuropa: “Written by the director, the story revolves around a young man, a war photographer recently released after being held captive in Syria for several months. Back in his hometown, Paris, he unsuccessfully tries to resume the normal course of his existence. So he decides to leave for India, where his mother lives, to try to rebuild his life. There, he meets a 17-year-old Indian girl who will assume a growing importance for him. As the weeks fly by, he tries to give his life new meaning.”

There’s no mention of Juliette Binoche in Lemercier’s story; when news broke last November of Binoche’s joining the cast, Jordan Raup (Film Stage) suggested that “it sounds like more of a supporting role.” Also last year, Hansen-Løve told Geoffrey Macnab in Screen that she was also working on a film inspired by her relationship with Olivier Assayas.

Karyn Kusama (The Invitation) will direct Nicole Kidman in Destroyer. According to Variety’s Dave McNary, Kidman “will portray an LAPD detective who, as a young cop, was placed undercover with a cult-like gang in the California desert. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, she must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to finally reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.”

Kate Winslet’s taking on a “starring role” in James Cameron’s “ongoing Avatar adventure,” reports Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr. “‘Kate and I have been looking for something to do together for twenty years, since our collaboration on Titanic, which was one of the most rewarding of my career,’ Cameron said. ‘I can’t wait to see her bring the character of Ronal to life.’”

Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote already has a release date in France, May 2018—which, of course, is when Cannes happens. We’ll see. Meantime, Gilliam’s screened a cut to a circle of friends and, as he tells David Sanderson in the Times (via the Playlist’s Kevin Jagernauth), “I am afraid it went terribly well. But there is always a side of me that right up until it is released will be ‘have we really got it as good as we can?’”

Armando Iannucci (The Death of Stalin) is hoping to shoot his version of David Copperfield next year, reports Screen’s Tom Grater. Iannucci “says he is returning to Dickens’ original text for his version, and plans to ignore previous screen adaptations. He calls himself a ‘huge Dickens fan’ and says that he particularly enjoys the way the author satirized Victorian Britain in his works.” Also, “Iannucci wants to keep details of the project, which has the working title Avenue 5, scarce for now as he is still writing the initial script, but he reveals to Screen that ‘the starting point is space tourism’ and it won’t entirely be set on a spaceship, as has previously been reported.”

Richard Eyre (Notes on a Scandal) will direct Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in King Lear for BBC Two and Amazon, reports Deadline’s Nancy Tartaglione. “Set in the fictional present, King Lear sets Hopkins as the eponymous ruler, presiding over a totalitarian military dictatorship in England. Thompson stars as his eldest daughter Goneril. Also in starring is Emily Watson as middle daughter Regan, and Florence Pugh will play Cordelia, the youngest of Lear’s children.”

John Malkovich has joined Sandra Bullock in Bird Box, the film Eric Heisserer (Arrival) has written and Susanne Bier (In a Better World) will direct, reports Variety’s Justin Kroll. Malkovich is also joining Mark Wahlberg in Peter Berg’s Mile 22, which is about a CIA agent “tasked with transporting a compromised informant from the center of the city to an awaiting getaway plane at an airport 22 miles away.”

Also, Luc Besson will direct Helen Mirren, Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy, and newcomer Sasha Luss in Anna, presumably an action along the lines of Lucy and Taken.

A Bob’s Burgers feature is headed to theaters in July 2020, reports Deadline’s Patrick Hipes.

At Bloody Disgusting, Brad Miska reports that a sequel to Levan Gabriadze’s Unfriended (2014) has been made in secret—and already test-screened.

Series

“Sally Field is set to recur opposite Emma Stone and Jonah Hill in the high-profile ten-episode Netflix series Maniac,” reports Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva. Going by the 2014 Norwegian series it’s based on, the story would be about the rich fantasy life of a patient at a psychiatric ward.

“Idris Elba will star in In the Long Run, a comedy series . . . loosely based on his own childhood,” reports Stewart Clarke for Variety. “Set in 1980s London the series will follow the Easmon family who have settled in England having arrived from Sierra Leone a decade earlier. Elba will be play Walter, the family’s father and who works in the local factory alongside friend and neighbor Bagpipes, played by Bill Bailey.”

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