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Universal Puts Joe Wright's Next Movie On HoldBy Katey Rich: 2009-10-20 10:54:52
Joe Wright's last attempt at tasteful, upscale adult entertainment, The Soloist, was a mess in pretty much every sense-- first it was pushed back from an awards season slot in 2008 to an April dumping ground, then it managed to only gross $31 million domestically for its efforts. It was really to be expected that the onetime boy wonder, whose first two features were the gorgeous Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, would have to cool his heels before taking off on his next cinematic adventure.So while it is a shame that Universal is calling off his next drama Indian Summer, because they're not willing to pay $40 million to finance it (this is the same studio that handed Land of the Lost a $100 million budget, remember), it's probably to be expected. Variety writes that Wright has decided not to cut the budget down to $30 million in order to start shooting on location in India next year, and instead will wait for "more favorable market conditions." In other words, once Universal has a few more hits like Couples Retreat under its belt, he may try again. The film, which will probably still get made one of these days, will star Cate Blanchett as Edna Mountbatten, the British royal who, with her husband, oversaw the transition of power between the English and Indian governments when that country ceased being a British colony in 1947. She's also rumored to have had a romance with India's first post-independence prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, a story element that the Indian government wanted downplayed and the studio, naturally, wanted to emphasize. "We were in between a rock and a hard place," Wright put it in Variety. "The Indian government wanted us to make less of the love story while the studio wanted us to make more of the love story." As much as I hated The Soloist, I have to admit I'm intrigued by this project, which I'd never even heard of before now. Wright has told women's stories excellently in the past, and this kind of lush, slightly exotic setting seems perfect to his skills-- I mean, he managed to make the British countryside look new and exciting. Plus, even if Joe Wright isn't making the best movies, he's at least making movies for grown-ups, which not many people are even willing to do these days. I'm betting Universal will eventually get it together to give Wright some cash, and maybe a little time off will give Wright time to make it even better. If there's going to be another British director to follow Danny Boyle's footsteps into India, it may as well be Wright.
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