Todd Field is one of my favourite directors, despite having only directed two feature length films in 12 years. But who cares when those two films were the staggeringly unforgettable IN THE BEDROOM and LITTLE CHILDREN. Both of these dramas rocked to my core, and so it’s great to hear that the actor turned director (he was in TWISTER don’t you know?) is to return for a third film. The oxymoronic BEAUTIFUL RUINS , will star Imogen Poots as actress Dee Moray, in a highly complex dramatic piece based on the novel of the same name. Cross Creek Productions and Smuggler Films will bring this 1962 set novel to life and you can read the press release below.
Cross Creek Pictures along with Smuggler Films announced today that Imogen Poots is attached to star as the young ingénue, “Dee Moray,” in Todd Field’s BEAUTIFUL RUINS, based on the sensational #1New York Times best-selling novel by Jess Walter, which has sold more than a million copies and been translated into 25 languages. BEAUTIFUL RUINS was adapted by Field and Walters, and Field will produce the film through Standard Film Company with Cross Creek’s Brian Oliver and Tyler Thompson, as well as Smuggler Films’ Patrick Milling Smith and Brian Carmody. In addition, Adam Kassan will oversee production for Cross Creek Pictures. Filming starts May 2014 in Italy.
The epic story begins off the Ligurian coast in the spring of 1962 and centers on four characters whose orbit around one another is set in motion by an incident involving the international jet-set center, Rome, in the throes of “La Dolce Vita” madness during the shooting of CLEOPATRA. As the sole female lead, Poots will play “Dee Moray,” a young actress whose ties to several men, a force-of-one studio raconteur, a WWII veteran struggling to finish his first novel, a young Italian hotelier, and the great Richard Burton himself, are the epicenter of the story. Casting for the male roles is underway.
Poots first made her mark in Brian Koppelman and David Levien’s SOLITARY MAN, opposite Michael Douglas and produced by Steven Soderbergh. Other films include Jon Baird’s FILTH, opposite James McAvoy, Yaron Zilberman’s A LATE QUARTET alongside Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman; as well as Michael Winterbottom’s THE KING OF SOHO. Poots will soon appear in Terrence Malick’s KNIGHT OF CUPS with Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett as well as Peter Bogdanovich’s SQUIRRELS TO THE NUTS starring opposite Owen Wilson.
Poots is represented by CAA, Independent Talent Group, and attorney Paul Cazers of Morris Yorn. CAA, which packaged the film, will represent its domestic distribution rights.
Source: Coming Soon
