Hot from winning the Best Director Oscar last year, The Artist’s Michel Hazanavicius is looking into working on a project with Paramount entitled Will@. Unfortunately,  The Film Stage doesn’t have any other details yet, which makes this really little better than an interesting aside.
Strange title, stranger that there are no details though; not even an up to date IMDB page. One imagines that Hazanavicius is something of a hot commodity following his Oscar win.
He’s currently gearing up for a modern-day version of Fred Zinneman’s The Search with his wife and frequent leading lady Berenice Bejo. Hazanavicius’s version is set in modern-day Chechnya though, an update from the original’s post-World War II setting.
“In the original film, the story revolved around a young boy who survived a concentration camp. In my film, the focus will be on the special relationship between a woman and a young boy as well,” says Hazanavicius.
The story sounds like it will be a significant departure for the comedic-minded director and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do with the film.
Seeing as The Search is a departure from the broader comedy that Michel Hazanavicius has done thus far, can we perhaps expect about the same from Will@? Or will it be a return to The Artist/OSS 117 territory?
Only time, and Paramount, can tell. As always though, we’ll keep you posted.
