Ok, so this we can get on board with. “Sin Nombre” is still one of our favorite movies of the year, so much so that we picked director Cary Fukunaga as one of our 7 rising auteurs of 2009 last week. He’s been circling a number of other projects, including an adaptation of the excellent African child soldier novel “Beasts of No Nation,” a sci-fi time travel movie and a possible musical, where the director would collaborate with Owen Pallett and Zach Condon (or, as they’re better known, Final Fantasy and Beirut).
But the director has picked his next project, and it’s again taking a completely different tack. Fukunaga will now helm a new adaptation of the classic Charlotte Bronte novel “Jane Eyre,” from Ruby Films (“Five Minutes of Heaven,” “The Other Boleyn Girl”). The book was last adapted in 1996 by Franco Zeffirelli, with a young Charlotte Gainsbourg in the lead. The project, with a script from playwright Moira Buffini, who’s behind Stephen Frears’ next movie, the graphic novel adaptation “Tamara Drewe,” has been in the works for a while — Ellen Page was attached to play the lead, although she’s no longer on board, which is a shame, she’d have been a pretty good choice.
This version will apparently play up the gothic qualities of the novel, which follows a young governess in 19th century England, who falls for her employer, and will start filming next year. Casting will begin pretty soon to fill Page’s departure — we reckon Carey Mulligan, Andrea Riseborough or even Anna Kendrick (“Up in the Air”) could all be good fits. “Sin Nombre” was an extraordinarily accomplished debut, and we’re particularly excited for Fukunaga to tackle something so different from that movie, even if it does delay that musical project we’re dying to see.