Tom Hanks, one of the rare A-list movie stars, is now attached to star in Cloud Atlas, which will be written and co-directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski, the siblings behind The Matrix, and Tom Tykwer, director of Run Lola Run. [Deadline]
We know that Hugo Weaving will likely be joining the already-announced cast of Halle Berry, James MacAvoy and Ian McKellan, but Hanks’ involvement was apparently just a rumor until now. We’ve been hearing about this adaptation of David Mitchell‘s novel since at least 2009, when it seemed that Tykwer would be adapting the book with the Wachowskis without coming aboard as co-director.
The addition of Tykwer to the helm is very interesting and pretty exciting, since his hyper-realistic style mirrors that of the Wachowskis in many ways. The formal attachment of Hanks to this fantasy project is another unexpected pleasure – he’s never done anything quite like this, but he has dated a mermaid and taken on the Illuminati, so he should handle himself pretty well .
Both the Wachowskis and Tykwer have their haters – for Speed Racer and Perfume: Story of a Murderer, respectively – and while I didn’t particularly care for either of those films, no one can deny these are filmmakers of talent and vision.
Read a synopsis of Cloud Atlas below and tell me this doesn’t sound like it’s in their wheelhouse:
A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation — the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.
Production begins in September.
What do you think of this story? Do the Wachowskis, Tykwer and Hanks sound like an interesting fit?