Mimi Leder, director of Deep Impact and George Clooney’s international thriller The Peacemaker, is heading back into battle.
Deadline is reporting that Leder has signed on to adapt a modern, relevant production of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel All Quiet On the Western Front, a harrowing account of the physical and mental toll suffered by soldiers during World War I that was written from the perspective of a German recruit. One year after its publication, Western Front was adapted into an Oscar-winning war picture by director Lewis Milestone.
Like several other combat films from generation to generation, Western Front spent a chunk of its time analyzing the difficulties experienced by soldiers who return home from war and struggle to rejoin society. The theme was covered brilliantly back in William Wyler’s 1946 drama The Best Years of Our Lives, though contemporary storytellers Kimberly Peirce, Neil Burger and Kathryn Bigelow have touched on the issue in their own films Stop-Loss, The Lucky Ones and The Hurt Locker, respectively.
Leder tells Deadline that she was surprised how the themes of disillusion and loss found in Remarque’s novel still resonated with her to this day, and saw no reason why the story couldn’t be updated to reflect the men and women currently fighting our global, military conflicts in the various branches of service. “There is an opportunity to make a great film about war, but it is also an anti-war film, an un-romanticized version of war and its consequences," Leder said.
It’s interesting how anti-war messages have been coming from female filmmakers like Bigelow, Peirce and now Leder. And though Leder has largely worked in television since her 2000 weeper Pay It Forward, her experience helming bigger-budget efforts like Deep Impact will serve her well as she tackles All Quiet On The Western Front. Deadline says the director aims to start production by the end of next year, possibly in Europe, where locations will better serve her material.
