Natalie Portman comes across as a pretty trustworthy individual. Previously hidden from the spotlight, her likely Oscar-winning role in Black Swan has caused quite amount of press these last few months. While she’s already stacked with releases this year (Thor, Your Highness, The Other Woman, No Strings Attached), she has given a major update on a massive project in the future.
While speaking with Entertainment Weekly (via The Playlist), Natalie Portman has unveiled that the Wachowskis, most famous for the Matrix trilogy, are planning to co-direct David Mitchell‘s Cloud Atlas, with Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, The International).
This definitely clears things up, as we heard Halle Berry confirm the Wachowskis were going to direct it. Before that we heard Tykwer was on it. The idea of them doing it together is quite fascinating. I love Tykwer’s visual approach in his early films like Lola, and even Perfume and Heaven. Mixed with the Wachowskis’ kinetic energy and inventiveness, this could be something special.
Portman assures us that we shouldn’t expect it anytime soon though, going against Berry’s original comment of a 2011 summer start:
“I don’t know what’s going on with financing,” Portman told EW in an interview that’s not online yet. “I read it while doing [The Wachowski produced] ‘V for Vendetta’ and I gave it to the Wachowskis and to Tom Tykwer (he shot a “Paris Je Taime” short with her around the same time). Now they’re directing it together, the three of them. I will have some acting role in it if it happens, but probably nothing major.”
As for the rest of the cast Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, James McAvoy, and Ian McKellan have all been attached. It would be an epic feat, as the story takes place over thousands of years, six leads, and across several genres. Read the synopsis below:
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.
The Wachowskis are also in the middle of an on-and-off shoot for their gay Iraq love story Cobalt Neutral 9, and we recently reported that are planning a modern day Robin Hood film, and looking at Will Smith to star. No one knows what they will do next, but we will keep you updated.
As for fanboys, sorry to disappoint but Portman has also denied any involvement in Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises and Zack Snyder‘s Superman: Man of Steel. I guess after Thor, one superhero film is enough.
What do you think about the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer directing Cloud Atlas together?