It looks like “Blue Is The Warmest Color” director Abdellatif Kechiche isn’t done with punishing stories about love. The director has revealed a new movie that he’s working on, though it likely won’t feature an explicit, centerpiece lesbian sex scene. Instead, the hottest moments might come from a letter arriving the mail.
Speaking with La Nouvel Observateur, the director revealed he’s got a movie cooking about Héloïse & Abélard—wait, who? If you’re not up on your 12th century history, Héloïse was scholar and physician who fell into an affair with her teacher, Abélard. She became pregnant and the pair married in secret, but it could not stop the rumors about their union. Abélard then decided to send Héloïse to a convent for her safety, but her uncle thought he had merely gotten rid of her, and with a group of friends, they castrated Abélard.
Abélard became a monk, and letters started going back and forth between himself and Héloïse, that found their passion continuing. Eventually Abélard spurned the romantic notions between them, and their relationship became strictly professional (Wikipedia has the whole story in much more detail).
Either way, potentially great material but who knows how far along this is in development, considering Kechiche has also talked about an extended cut of “Blue Is The Warmest Color,” and a potential biopic of ’70s porn star Marilyn Chambers.
Meanwhile, the long-developing remake of Alfred Hitchcock‘s “The Birds“—produced by Michael Bay—now has a director. THR reports that Dutch filmmaker Diederik Van Rooijen will be at the helm, with a script by Jonathan Herman (whose only writing credit on IMDB is for something called “Firepussy.”) The studio claims that this take will be more faithful to Daphne du Maurier‘s original short story, but we’d be kinda surprised if anyone at Platinum Dunes has actually read it. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the long-ago-attached Naomi Watts is no longer involved.