Variety is reporting today that Tobey Maguire has signed on to co-star in Ang Lee‘s Life Of Pi. He’ll play “a writer who interviews Pi about his life-changing experience.” This will be Lee and Maguire’s third film together, the first two being Ride With The Devil and The Ice Storm. Maguire joins a cast that includes Suraj Sharma, Gerard Depardieu, Irrfan Khan and Adil Hussain. Apparently Maguire’s role won’t be large but fear not Tobey fans, you’ll be able to catch him in a bigger role in The Great Gatsby which arrives next year.
It’s nice to see this one finally picking up. There were a number of directors attached before Lee finally signed on in February of 2009. This is a novel that Hollywood has been trying to bring to the big screen for a while and I think it will make for a great film. I read the novel a while ago but from what I remember, I really enjoyed it.
“I am delighted that Tobey has joined the film,” said Lee. “He is one of my favorite actors that I have had the pleasure of working with and I am so excited that we get to work together for the third time.”
For those unfamiliar with the novel, Amazon describes it as the following:
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them “the truth.” After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional–but is it more true?
The film is set to open in 3D on December 14, 2012.
