Good Prayers from Wang

Either Wayne Wang is about to get, like, Joss Whedon-busy, or somebody is lying to the trades on his behalf on a regular basis. Back in February, it was announced that he was going to direct a "caper-comedy" called Lowlifes, about a housewife who "discovers she has a talent for burglary." That film, however, is nowhere to be found on his IMDb page. In its place are two dramas: New York Confidential, the Jason Itzer biopic we told you about last fall (though back then it was called Rocket Fuel for Winners), and a new one called Good Cook, Likes Music, about "a trailer-park slacker [who] sends away for a mail order bride -- a woman who turns out to be a musical prodigy who changes his life." Gotta love those mail order prodigies.

And now, in addition to those three projects, Production Weekly reported this morning that Wang is also going to direct a screen version of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, a collection of stories by Yiyun Li "about life in modern China and the United States." The screenplay focuses on a Chinese man who travels to the Pacific Northwest to fix his relationship with his recently-divorced daughter. When the man arrives in the States, "he meets an older, Farsi-speaking Iranian woman. Even though they are total strangers, with the inability to communicate with a common language, they forge a bond with each other." Man, I'm such a sucker -- as cheesy as that sounds, I've been sucked in already. I bet there's going to be lots of pretty, fog-shrouded scenery, too.

If Production Weekly is to be trusted, from Wang's list of four (possible) projects, Good Prayers is going to be done first: It's expected to start shooting in Washington state this fall.