Film News Roundup: Jodie Foster to Direct, Star in Remake of Icelandic Thriller

In today’s film news roundup, Jodie Foster is remaking Iceland’s “Woman at War,” the Art Directors Guild honors production designers Anthony Masters and Ben Carre, “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” gets cast and Melissa Takal directs “New Year New You” for Hulu.

PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT

Jodie Foster will direct, co-produce and star in an English-language remake of the thriller “Woman at War,” Iceland’s submission to the Foreign Language competition at the upcoming 91st Academy Awards.

The Icelandic movie centers on a music teacher who’s escalating her sabotage against the local aluminum industry when she discovers that her adoption application has been approved and a baby girl is awaiting her in the Ukraine. The script won the best script prize in the Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival.

Foster plans to relocate the setting to the American West. It will be her fifth directorial gig following “Money Monster,” “The Beaver,” “Home for the Holidays” and “Little Man Tate.” Foster won best actress Oscars for “The Accused” and “Silence of the Lambs.”

Slot Machine, which produced the original, will also produce the new film as a joint venture with Foster’s Egg Pictures. The news was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.

PRODUCTION DESIGNERS

Production designers Anthony (Tony) Masters and Ben Carre will be inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame at the 23rd Annual Art Directors Guild’s Excellence in Production Design Awards.

The 2019 awards will be held Feb. 2 at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. Masters received an Oscar nomination for best art direction in 1968 for “2001: A Space Odyssey.” His other best-known films include “Dune,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Papillon,” “Tai-Pan,” “The Clan of the Cave Bear” and “The Deep.” He has two dozen credits as an art director, including “The Heroes of Telemark,” “The Day the Earth Caught Fire,” “Faces in the Dark” and the Oscar-winning short “The Bespoke Overcoat.”

Carré is best known for the catacomb set designs for “The Phantom of the Opera,” the Emerald City from “The Wizard of Oz,” the home of the Smith family in “Meet Me in St. Louis” and sets for “The Jazz Singer.” He began his professional career as a scene painter for the Paris Opera and the Comédie-Francaise. He took a permanent job in MGM’s scenic art department, painting backgrounds for “An American in Paris,” “North by Northwest,” “Singing in the Rain,” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

CASTINGS

Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures has unveiled the cast of its sequel “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” with John Corbett, Nia Long, and Sophie Nelisse along with Corinne Foxx and Sistine Stallone in their film debuts.

Foxx is the daughter of Jamie Foxx and Stallone is the daugther of Sylvester Stallone. “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” begins principal photography this week in the Dominican Republic, then continues the shoot in the United Kingdom. It’s slated for a domestic theatrical release on about 3,500 screens on June 28, 2019.

The original “47 Meters Down” grossed $44.3 million in North America on a $5.5 million budget. The original movie followed two sisters (Mandy Moore and Claire Holt) who get trapped underwater during a diving excursion, where they become hunted by Great White sharks.

The sequel centers on four teens diving in a ruined underwater city, who quickly find themselves in a watery hell as their adventure turns to horror when they learn they are not alone in the submerged caves as they enter the territory of the deadliest shark species in the ocean. Johannes Roberts returns to direct from a script he co-wrote with Ernest Riera. James Harris, Mark Lane and Robert Jones of The Fyzz are producing with Byron Allen, Carolyn Folks, and Jennifer Lucas executive producing.

DIRECTOR ATTACHMENT

Blumhouse Television has hired its first female director, Sophia Takal, for its Hulu horror series “Into the Dark.”

Takal, whose credits include “Green” and “Always Shine,” directed the all-female horror movie “New Year New You” for the series. The feature will premiere on Hulu on Dec. 28.

The story centers on a group of friends from high school reconnect for a special New Year’s Eve girls night but as they begin to rehash old memories, many of the gripes they’ve been harboring manifest in murderous ways. Suki Waterhouse, Carly Chaikin, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Melissa Bergland star.

Paul Fisher’s “The Body” and Nacho Vigalondo’s “Pooka!” were the first titles in the series. The news about Takal was first reported by Indiewire.

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