In doing the press rounds for soon-to-be-released thriller High-Rise, prolific British filmmaker Ben Wheatley has already set sights on his next project, The Wages of Fear.
Less a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1950s epic and more a reinterpretation of the seminal novel by Georges Arnaud, word of Wheatley’s new feature film comes by way of Empire, who spoke to the acclaimed director about his vision for The Wages of Fear.
Situated in the Cradle of Life, Wheatley revealed that he’s building the movie around a female-centric cast. In Arnaud’s original, the story centered on a group of resilient European men who, upon being hired by an American conglomerate, drive two trucks loaded with nitroglycerine cross-country in order to put out a fire – one that’s wreaking havoc on a precious Mexican oil well.
How exactly Wheatley plans to rework The Wages of Fear is still up for question, though here’s a brief snippet from the man himself:
“The main change for me is that it will be set in Africa, and it’ll have women in it! Women truckers. It’s kind of bonkers to do it again, but it’s a good bonkers. We’re going back to old-school tension. They’re built around two or three amazing set-pieces, these movies, and that’s the challenge. It’s physics-based filmmaking, and something you’ve not seen before.”
Before The Wages of Fear, Wheatley will shift gears to partner with Martin Scorsese for crime drama Free Fire. It’s attracted quite the ensemble, too, with Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Room breakout Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Jack Reynor, Michael Smiley, Sam Riley and Noah Taylor already on board. High-Rise, on the other hand, debuts in the UK first on March 18 with a US release to follow shortly thereafter.
