At the end of October, Joe Wright’s plans to direct a movie starring Cat Blanchett about the end of British rule in India, called Indian Summer, fell apart when Universal put the movie on hold due to budget concerns. However rather than falling into despair, by mid-November he was already in talks to helm the killer teen flick, Hanna.
Now Screen Daily says that he’s found his leading lady for the movie – Soarise Ronan. It was in Wright’s Atonement that the young Ronan first found acting success (and an Oscar nomination) and Hanna will see the duo working together again. The actress will play a 14-year-old 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. Hanna is then dragged back into her father’s world and after discovering she was bred as a killer in a CIA prison camp, she must fight for her freedom.
The action tone of the movie is certainly a change of direction for both Wright and Ronan, but could certainly be a very good match-up and will continue Soarise’s rise to stardom following Atonement and The Lovely Bones.
Shooting is due to take place later this year, based on a script by David Farr and Seth Lochhead.