Although much praised by critics, many were sceptical when the idea of adapting Paul Torday’s novel Salmon Fishing In Yemen was first mooted. The book is a multi-layered affair, built from e-mails, letters, memos and other bits and pieces that give various different takes on events to build up a overall picture, something it might be difficult to replicate on screen.
However many fears were assuaged when it was revealed Slumdog’s Millionaire’s Simon Beaufoy was the man on scripting duties, and when his screenplay ended up on the 2009 Black List of the best unproduced scripts in Hollywood, it seemed any initial scepticism wa unfounded.
Until recently it was Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Kinsey, Dreamgirls) who was in the director’s chair, but as he’s just signed on to make Twilight: Breaking Dawn, he’s had to step asside and according to THR it’s Lasse Hallstrom who’s taken his place. Whether this is good news depends on which Hallstrom we get – the subtle smart one who made My Life As A Dog, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and The Cider House Rules, or the phoning-it-in one who made Casanova and Dear John.
Perhaps even more interesting is that they’re starting to fill up the cast, with Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott attached to the film, although there’s no news on what roles they’ll be playing.
The plot, in case you’re interested, is about Dr. Alfred Jones, a London fisheries scientist living a pedestrian but orderly life, who gets consulted on a visionary sheik’s plans to introduce salmon and salmon fishing to Yemen. While Jones thinks it’s unlikely to work, when the goverment seizes on it as part of a PR initiative, Alfred is thrust into a world of politics, bereaucracy, war and larger than life personalities, on a yearlong journey to try and bring to life the sheik’s vision of spiritual peace through fishing.