So, as Variety reported this weekend, Ethan Hawke has signed on to star in Danish filmmaker Kasper Barfoed’s CIA thriller “The Numbers Station.” Barfoed’s known for Danish-language films “The Candidate” and “The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar,” but he’s obviously not even remotely a household name, even in the world of cinephiles (in related interesting news, Sam Worthington was once attached to star in a remake of ‘Candidate’ but now we presume the Aussie actor has bigger tentpole fish to fry).
Hawke is co-producing, there’s a small $10 million dollar budget and the production is eyeing a September start date, but of more interest to us?
According to the newest issue of Production Weekly, Hawke, Marion Cotillard and Mark Ruffalo are attached to star in a tragic-sounding low-budget indie drama called, “Second Coming,” from producers Richard N. Gladstein (two-time Academy Award nominated for “Finding Neverland” and “The Cider House Rules”), Laura Bickford (“Traffic,” “Che”) and French producer Ludovic Dardenay. Anjelica Huston and Thandie Newton are also attached to star according to a Spanish newspaper. Here’s the synopsis.
Actor John Zener becomes an even bigger media obsession after releasing a controversial film on the 2nd Coming of Christ. This obsession results in the death of his wife and daughter in a paparazzi caused accident forcing John to question for the first time the choices he has made. Teetering between delusion and sanity, John embarks on a journey through NYC, France and Spain to free himself of everything that symbolized his former life. It is through his journey that John finds transcendence and embraces the empathy that was missing in his life.
Apparently the film did pop up on Marion Cotillard and Ruffalo’s IMDB page in January of this year and it says Ruffalo plays the male lead, John, and Cotillard apparently plays his wife, but this is the first that most people are hearing about it. And evidently Cotillard is actually the star and is also an executive-producer. The film will evidently be the feature-film directorial debut of rookie filmmaker Nenad Cicin-Sain. The project was also briefly mentioned in a Variety article from Cannes this week, as it is eligible for French tax rebates, so it’s definitely in active development.
But as far as its time-table? The Spanish-language article from April suggested filming was supposed to start Mid-May, but it feels like that schedule has been bumped at least a little bit, even the contacts for this one are currently in Cannes. A shoot soon or this summer would make sense as most of the talent are busy come the fall.