With Universal cancelling production on his Cate Blanchett starring period drama, Indian Summer, just before it was due to start filming, Atonement director Joe Wright has been scouting around for a new project.
It seems he may have found it, as THR reports that he’s in talks to take the helm on Focus Feature’s action-adventure, Hanna. The script, by Seth Lochhead and David Farr, has been around since 2007, and has gained interest from directors including Danny Boyle and Alfonso Cuaron, but with nobody signing on the dotted line, it’s given Joe Wright the opportunity to swoop in.
The film, which is decribed as having shades of La Femme Nikita and the Bourne trilogy, is about a 14-year-old Eastern European girl who has been raised by her father to be a cold-blooded killing machine. However she forms a friendship with the daughter of a French family, which gives her a taste of a more normal life. Unfortunately though, as is inievitable in the movies, she’s dragged back into her father’s world and after discovering she was bred as a killer in a CIA prion camp, must fight for her freedom.
It would certainly be a change of direction for Wright after Pride & Prejudice, The Soloist and Atonement, but we’d be interested to see his take on an action-adventure. It also make you wonder who will play the lead role in Hanna. After Zombieland, we reckon Abigail Breslin may now be just old enough to take of a teen killer, but we’ll have to wait and see.