It seems these days Roman Polanski has a thing for plays. Last year he brought "Carnage" to the big screen, an adaption of Yasmin Reza's acclaimed "God Of Carnage," and while he's flirted with a couple of projects since then including "D", about the Dreyfuss Affair, and a period movie about aging, his next effort is another big screen version of a stage production.
Polanski will co-write and direct "Venus In Fur," and has lined up his wife Emmanuelle Seigner and Louis Garrel to star. Penned by David Ives (who co-wrote the screenplay with Polanski), this is another tale about shifting power, all in a contained setting and with a story centering on the writer/director of a new play who is enduring the audition process of finding an actress for the role in his upcoming work. But a new talent comes in at the last minute and is seemingly the opposite of everything he's looking for…of course, this is just the beginning.
"Venus Is Fur" began off Broadway in 2010 before eventually moving to the Great White Way where it received rave reviews and earned Nina Arianda a Tony Award earlier this year, helping her launch in a big way into movies, nabbing roles in "Joplin," "The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby" and "Fellini Black And White." So in short, the material is proven, and we'd wager that this one will require a relatively meager budget, which means financing has been easier to come by.
The film will mark Seingner's fourth collaboration with her husband, and her first since 1999's "The Ninth Gate," while it will be Garrel's first outing with the helmer. The French language film will start shooting in Paris in November, and we'll roll the dice and say that a Cannes Film Festival premiere is not entirely out of the question. [AlloCine]
