With Sam Taylor-Johnson off directing Fifty Shades of Grey, Sony Pictures has found a new director for their adaptation of the Robert Goolrick novel A Reliable Wife. With the aforementioned helmer initially attached nearly a year, Deadline now reports that I Am Love‘s Luca Guadagnino has come aboard the project, scripted by Andrew Kevin Walker. Described as a romantic thriller, it’s set in the early 1900’s in Wisconsin, in which a beautiful woman answers an ad for rich widower looking to elope — and, from there, things take a dark turn. Production isn’t set to occur until the winter, so hopefully he can fit in the long-gestating, David Cronenberg-led Body Art in the meantime.
In other director news, Miguel Gomes‘ feature-length follow-up to the acclaimed black-and-white drama Tabu has been unveiled. According to Screen Daily, he’s already begun production on Arabian Nights (aka One Thousand and One Nights), a production of an epic scale, which started last December and will continue through 2014. This new version of the classic story is set in contemporary Portugal, dealing with their economic crisis and containing stories that will be pulled from the headlines. With a cast including Adriano Luz, Carloto Cotta, Rogério Samora, Diogo Dória and Crista Alfaiate, one can see more production background on the film’s official site, including concept art, and we’ve embedded a still below:
Next up, Pablo Larrain has found a follow-up to his ’80s-set drama No. According to Variety, the Chilean director will next helm Neruda, a look at the life of Pablo Neruda (the pen name, then legal name, of Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto), the Nobel Prize winner who wrote the poem Canto General and was a key political figure in the country. Taking place specifically between 1946 and 1948, Lorrain says, “the film turns on Pablo Neruda defining his identity as a human being, where he stands for the rest of his life.” With a script currently in the works with co-writer Guillermo Calderon, there’s no set production timeline yet.
Lastly, after finding success over at Paramount following their Sundance hit Catfish — both with the TV show and two Paranormal Activity films — filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman have found their next project. THR reports that they’ve been hired by Lionsgate to adapt Jeanne Ryan‘s YA novel, Nerve, which sounds right up their alley. The plot details a high school senior who joins an online game of escalating truth and dare as onlookers watch (sounds a bit like the forthcoming Cheap Thrills, no?). Anyway, there’s no word yet on when this one will launch into production, but knowing how fast the duo released their previous horror films, we could be seeing it sooner than imagined.
Which of the above projects are you most looking forward to?