With his long-in-development passion project Pinocchio now out in the world, director Guillermo del Toro has set his next stop-motion animation: an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2015 novel The Buried Giant. Currently in the process of co-writing the script with Dennis Kelly (Matilda: The Musical), the director tells The Telegraph that they’ll begin the design process in two months for the story of an elderly couple who live in a world with no long-term memories. When they faintly recall they may have had a son many years earlier, they go on an adventure to seek him out.
“Animation has given us so many indelible images over the years, but in many ways the industry wants to keep it at the children’s table. So I want to keep pushing the medium into areas that demonstrate its capacity” said del Toro. First up, he’ll helm a yet-to-be-announced live-action feature, though rumors are of an Oscar Isaac-led Frankenstein adaptation.
After some wondrously imaginative earlier films, including The Fall, Immortals and Mirror Mirror, Tarsem Singh hasn’t made a movie since 2015’s Self/less. However, he’s now set his return with Dear Jassi, which will mark his first Indian film. Variety reports no plot details are being disclosed for the film written by Amit Rai and based on a true story, but production has already concluded in Northern India and post-production is underway in Montreal. With a mid-2023 release plans, expect more details soon. “It’s my passion project and I believe this is the right time for the world to see it,” Singh said. “Such a strong story needs to be told.”
Thirst Street and Uncertain Terms director Nathan Silver has set Toni Collette and Odessa Young to star in his forthcoming twisted revenge thriller The Prima Donna. Deadline reports the Rome-set film, co-written with C. Mason Wells, follows Collette as a legendary opera diva who is about to step into the role of a lifetime just as her estranged daughter (Young) shows up at her doorstep, right out of rehab.
Following up the harrowing Nitram, Justin Kurzel has announced a new project, the crime drama The Order. Set to star Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult, Deadline reports the script from Zach Baylin (King Richard) is adapted from Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s book The Silent Brotherhood, which follows the real-life story of a white supremacist domestic terrorist group in the 1980s in the Pacific Northwest. Law will play the Idaho-based FBI agent tracking down the group, led by Hoult’s character.
After Orson Welles, Anthony Bourdain, and Mister Rogers, Oscar winner Morgan Neville has found the subject of his next documentary. Deadline reports he’s directing Man on the Run, which will follow Paul McCartney’s creative output in the decade following his departure from The Beatles, including the formation of Wings and beyond and his relationship with Linda McCartney. Neville has been granted access to never-before-seen archival materials to examine this often-overlooked period for McCartney, who turns 81 this June.
Lastly, the first look at one of our most-anticipated films of the year has arrived.