The Wachkowskis and Tom Tykwer have been hammering away at Cloud Atlas for what seems like ages. It’s a vast and intriguing project, but it’s hard to keep up the interest when Halle Barry may take a role in it, and maybe Ian McKellen and James McAvoy and…
The perils of modern movie news. But at least today there’s actually a solid casting item.
According to Deadline, Tom Hanks has signed on to star in Cloud Atlas. It’s not clear what role he plays — and I haven’t read the book, but I know it’s a series of interlocking stories. There’s no main character, exactly.
The official logline for the film doesn’t help: “An epic story of humankind in which the actions and consequences of our lives impact one another throughout the past, present and future as one soul is shaped from a murderer into a savior and a single act of kindness ripples out for centuries to inspire a revolution.”
Will Hanks be the single soul? Maybe. I’m anxious to see this one come together, probably more now that Hanks is on board. He has never tackled sci-fi before, and certainly nothing like this. It’s a refreshing change from his usual dramedy or historical picks.
The Wachkowskis and Tykwer are now officially listed as co-directors. Given the nature of the story (or stories), this seems inevitable. It’s a daring project. I can’t wait to see what comes of it.
6 comments
Will this come before or after their gay Iraq war sci-fi movie?
What do you mean he’s never done sci-fi before? Doesn’t The DaVinci Code count?
No. It’s a thriller with a heady dose of religious/historical theory. At best, you could call it alternative history, I guess…but that’s a stretch. It’s just a thriller. I wouldn’t call the National Treasure movies sci-fi either.
Cloud Atlas is nothing without its structure. The individual parts of the book don’t amount to much (especially the when it moves into the future). It’s how they work together that makes it, and I can’t imagine a movie having time to tell the story with the book’s structure.
But it was successful so maybe there’s a built-in audience so of course someone has to make a tepid movie out of it.
Really, Shrug? This is not a book with such a built in audience that it gets greenlit, and say what you want about the Wachowskis but “tepid” really doesn’t apply to their work. If anything they dream a bit too big, but I’ll take an interesting failure over some regurgitated slop from the studios.
I think “tepid” is pretty applicable to “V for Vendetta” and the “official logline” quoted above suggests a similar attitude in the adaptation? They dream “big” but dumb. Subtlety doesn’t seem to be their thing when they’re tossing ideas around.
This is why I think Speed Racer is the best movie they’ve been involved with (ho ho)
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