SophieMarceau Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Marc Esposito, French filmmaker and founder of the French movie magazine Studio, is heading to the world of fairy tales. Having recently wrapped production on his film Le Coeur des hommes 2, he told The Hollywood Reporter that he will be tackling the world of glass slippers and sinister stepsisters with Cendrillon (Cinderella). They're calling it a "film lover's fairy tale," presumably because it's going to reunite Jean Reno and Sophie Marceau, who were both in Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders' Beyond the Clouds. Or, maybe this Cinderella tale will have a taste of the movies.

Either way, Reno will play the king, Marceau the fairy godmother, and they will be joined by Catherine Jacob as the wicked aunt, and César winner for Most Promising Female Newcomer Melanie Laurent as Cinderella. (She recently co-starred in the WWII drama, Days of Glory.) So far, there's no word on the scripts details, and how closely it will follow the fairy tale, but the project will enter production next summer, for the nice sum of $36.2 million. In the meantime, you can always get Enchanted with some Snow White flavor, but somehow, I have the funny feeling that there will really be no comparison between the two.

In the sea of updates pouring out of ComicCon, trying to cut through the din with an announcement about a Lasse Hallström film almost seems like a waste of time. Variety reports that Hallström has signed to direct a remake of the French film Anthony Zimmer. The original was released in 2005 and was directed by Jérôme Salle; it centered on a tourist in Paris who is recruited as a stand-in for a money launderer on the run. The film starred Sophie Marceau as his mistress, and Yvan Attal as the unsuspecting traveler.

Canal Plus, which also produced the original, has signed with Spyglass to co-produce Hallström's remake and Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) has already written a script that, by the sound of it, has made only a few minor changes. The story now focuses on "an American tourist who finds his life in danger when a female Interpol agent uses him as a dupe to flush out an elusive criminal with whom she once had an affair."

Just last month Ryan had reported that Halstrom was signing on to direct the comedy Finn at the Blue Line with Sarah Jessica Parker, so it seems like he's on a roll lately. The Finn announcement was only the latest in a series of films Hallström has committed to; including a Christmas Carol remake, and a rom-com titled Sammy. Throw in his adaptation of Daughter of The Queen of Sheba and the Royal Physician's Visit, and he's going to have a tight schedule. Zimmer is slated to start shooting on location in Europe early 2008.

For the weekend:

• There's a really interesting animated film premiering in France next month, that will hopefully make its way across the ocean and give us some animation that's not about bugs, penguins or any of the other hot, animated creatures of the moment. The film is Persepolis, and you can find a trailer and clips over at Cartoon Brew (It's cute, but unfortunately not in English. However, it's fairly easy to get the gist). The film is adapted from Marjane Satrapi's comic memoir of her experiences growing up in Tehran, and the clips have recognizable pop references from Julio Iglesias to Michael Jackson. To sweeten the deal further, both Catherine Deneuve and Gena Rowlands have lent their voices to the movie. If only we could get more cool rocker chick movies, and less kooky animal ones...
• Sophie Marceau has a bunch on the up and up, so I thought I'd fill you in. While her projects aren't as mainstream as some of her previous work, like Braveheart and The World is Not Enough, she's been clocking time both behind and in front of the camera. She's currently in Cannes for her second directorial feature, Trivial -- a thriller that takes place in and around Deauville's Hotel Normandie, which will hit French screens next week. In front of the camera, she's playing a resistance fighter in the WWII thriller, Female Agents. And once all that is done, she's going to work on her third feature directorial stint. Variety quotes her as saying, or rather purring as they put it: "I don't want only to satisfy other people's desires. I have desires of my own, and making my own films satisfies them." Here, here!
• This September, the U.K.-South Africa co-production treaty will finally be taken advantage of with Anthony Fabian's Skin. It sounds like a pretty interesting story -- it's based on a black girl who was born to white parents in South Africa, who obviously had a heck of a hard time dealing with discrimination under previous apartheid laws. The movie will star Sophie Okonedo, who starred with Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda. I wonder if we'll ever get the story of the black and white twins and some point, too?