Revered Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg has been recruited to helm upcoming submarine thriller Kursk for Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp, according to Deadline.
Based on Robert Moore’s acclaimed book A Time To Die: The Kursk Disaster, Vinterberg’s next creative venture will send the director back to the year 2000, where the titular Russian sub sank to the depths of the Barents Sea after a disastrous explosion. In Moore’s insightful account of the tragic accident, the decorated journalist traces the disaster back to a dummy warhead that exploded, killing over 100 crew members and leaving only 23 alive. From what we understand, Vinterberg’s adaptation will double down on the survival tale of those survivors.
Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan, The Patriot) is working on adapting Moore’s non-fiction book to the big screen, with the next step in the creative process involving sending the feelers out for potential cast members. Deadline notes that EuropaCorp hopes to get the cameras rolling by the fall in Europe.
Vinterberg, best known as the creative mind behind Festen, It’s All About Love and 2012’s criminally under-seen gem The Hunt, was only of the early frontrunners of the Dogme 95 movement that emerged from Denmark in the mid-90s that championed avant-garde filmmaking, shunning traditional Hollywood techniques such as studio lighting in the process.
For his latest, Thomas Vinterberg will be headed to the deep blue for Kursk, and we’ll keep you posted now that the thriller has cast the net in search of its leading stars.
