Update: Deadline have pulled one of their famous about-turns, and removed any mention of Dillon from the original story, now saying that the second male lead "isn't cast yet..." Did they jump the gun on Dillon? Or will it end up being someone else entirely? Paging Ralph Fiennes...Even with his legal problems behind him, temporarily at least, we figured it would be a little while before Roman Polanski got moving on another feature. So we're slightly stunned that not only does the legendary director have his next film financed and ready to shoot in February, but it's also fully cast. And what a cast it is.
Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz and Matt Dillon will all star in "God of Carnage," the adaptation of the hit play by French writer Yasmina Reza ("Art"), which has long been thought to be Polanski's next project. The story, set in New York (which the helmer can't film in, for obvious reasons, and will instead shoot in Paris), follows two sets of middle-class parents who meet for dinner after their children get into a fight at school.
What's perhaps most surprising, considering the wealth of stars who've appeared in the show on the West End or on Broadway, including Ralph Fiennes, Janet McTeer, Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden, James Gandolfini, Lucy Liu and Hope Davis, is that Polanski's gone with an entirely new cast, but with one this high-calibre, we don't mind too much. We're particularly glad to see that the director's attempting to salvage Dillon from the Screen Gems hell that his career seems to have entered recently. Our guess is that he and Winslet will play Alan and Annette, while Waltz and Foster will play Michael and Veronica, but there's a number of possible permutations here. The only cast member who could improve on one of these four, considering the prevalent themes of racism, homophobia and misogyny? Foster's friend Mel Gibson...
Despite the likelihood of "The Ghost Writer" figuring high in our end-of-year worst list, we're excited about this — the source material is very smart and funny, and Polanski's rarely better than when he's dealing with explosive situations in contained spaces. The biggest question is whether Polanski will be able to open the play up to feel a little more cinematic. With a twelve week shoot planned for February, it's possible that it'll be ready for the awards season next year, but our guess is that, following the footsteps of "The Ghost Writer," it'll premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in early 2012. [Deadline]
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