At the moment we don’t know who has accepted and who hasn’t, but Production Weekly (via The Playlist), says that offers have gone out to Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, James McAvoy and Ian McKellen for roles in a Tom Twyker adaptation of Cloud Atlas, and rumours last year that Natalie Portman was also involved, are true.
While Twyker has been involved with Cloud Atlas for quite a while, with the Wachowskis producing, he’s been busy directing Drei, and so it’s only now that he’s started putting his cast together (he’s also said to be working on What Is The What?, but it appears Clous Atlas will come next).
There’s no news on eactly who each of the actors might play, but David Mitchell’s complex, post-modern novel follows six separate but loosely connected stories, ranging from people in the South Pacific in the 19th Century, to a post-nuclear apocalyse future, with each story narrated by the main character of the next tale. It’s not clear whether the film version will take in all six stories or just concentrate on a few (or even just one). It would certainly be daunting to try and cover everything, but as always with anything the Wachowskis are involved with, there’s no official word on what it will exactly be.