Columbia has been talking up its plans for a remake of My Fair Lady for quite a qhile now, but they seem to have had trouble landing a director. It appears a lot of people have been concerned about re-doing the 1964 unabashed multi-Oscar winning classic starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, feeling any new version will come up short.
The last director rumoured to be behind-the-camera was Atonement’s Joe Wright, but he quickly moved to say this wasn’t true, while the likes of Danny Boyle, Baz Luhrmann and Stephen Daldry have also been linked to the film at various points. However it now looks like the studio may have found their man in the form of Shakespeare In Love director John Madden.
Variety reports that Madden is officially in talks with Columbia over the job, which will see him give his take on Lerner and Loewe’s classic musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, about humble flower girl Eliza Dolittle, who’s taken under the wing of the crotchety Professor Higgins, after he makes a bet he can pass off anybody as a society lady.
Interestingly, while a month or so ago, it seemed that Keira Knightley had definitely landed the role of Eliza Dolittle, there’s still no formal agreement for her to play the part, and Madden may not want her. He will appparently spearhead the search for the leading lady and man in the new year, once he’s finished work on the Helen Mirren starred, The Debt. This doesn’t mean Knightley won’t be in the film (although we hope not), but certainly shows she’s not the shoe-in it’s been reported that she is.