This year’s European Film Market in Berlin has seen all sorts of odd casting announcements, from Shia LaBeouf jumping back into acting with Rock the Casbah to Twilight‘s Nikki Reed climbing on board the ridiculous-sounding horror flick Email, but mixed in with all of the strange headlines have been a few promising reveals about some very intriguing projects.
As a big fan of Dogtooth, I was particularly excited to hear some scoop about Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ upcoming English-language debut, called The Lobster. Joining a terrific supporting cast, Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz have now agreed to star in the dystopian romance.
In The Lobster, described as an “unconventional love story,” finding the right partner is literally a matter of life and death. No specifics yet on the roles that Farrell and Weisz are taking on, but it’s certainly not too risky to predict that they’ll be romantically entwined in some way. Farrell is replacing Zero Dark Thirty star Jason Clarke, who was recently forced to drop The Lobster in order to stay committed to Everest, an adventure thriller from 2 Guns director Baltasar Kormákur.
The film also stars Ben Whishaw (Skyfall), Léa Seydoux (Blue is the Warmest Colour) and Olivia Colman (Broadchurch), and Lanthimos will re-team with Alps actress Ariane Labed and his Dogtooth star Aggeliki Papoulia for the film.
Lanthimos wrote the script for The Lobster with frequent collaborator Efthimis Filippou. Given how brilliantly bizarre their previous two films, Dogtooth and Alps, were, I can’t wait to see what weirdness is in store for this dystopian romance. Add in the fact that The Lobster will be Lanthimos’ first English film, and it’s not difficult to start getting excited at this early stage. Luckily, work on the film is moving fast, with production set to begin in Ireland on March 24.
Have you seen either Dogtooth or Alps? And if you have, are you interested in checking out more projects from Yorgos Lanthimos? Let us know in the comments section!
