Lars von Trier, arguably one of the most prolific and decorated filmmakers in all of Denmark, hasn’t been seen behind the lens since helming the controversial, two-part sex saga Nymphomaniac in 2013. But during Cannes Film Festival, early details began to surface regarding von Trier’s latest, which has been billed as an ambitious, decade-spanning crime drama.
Bearing the title The House that Jack Built, word from the Croisette revealed that the director is now gearing up to nudge the film into production ahead of a planned release in 2018. Tethered with a $10 million budget, Screen Daily spoke with producer Louise Vesth about the general premise underpinning the crime saga:
“It’s a film about Jack, a serial killer. We follow him over 10 years and we experience the way he gets into the killings. We follow his murders where he’s taking more and more chances because he wants to make the perfect piece of art… the ending will be fatal.”
In a separate interview with Variety over the weekend, Vesth held up The House that Jack Built as a serial killer movie unlike any we’ve ever seen before which, given von Trier’s celebrated résumé, isn’t as hyperbolic as it first sounds.
“It will be a serial killer movie like you’ve never seen before. He wants to be able to change it between periods of shooting because when we’ll have done the body of the film in the fall, he will then go edit it and he sees how he can combine the murders.” Revealing it’ll be set in Washington, but shot in France, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, she adds, “like with Dancer In The Dark he wants to find a location in the Film Vast area [of Western Sweden] for this purpose.”
Told across five distinct vignettes, The House that Jack Built is expected to enter production in the coming months. That means Lars von Trier will be casting the net in search of his stars very soon indeed, and you can bet that we’ll be keeping tabs on the director’s latest as it develops.
