The latest out of Cannes is the announcement of Broadway director Michael Mayer’s upcoming adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull. Saoirse Ronan (The Grand Budapest Hotel) and Annette Bening (Danny Collins) have been locked in to star, according to Variety. K5 International is currently courting distributors for the film at Cannes.
The 1895 play centers on the romantic and artistic entanglements of four characters: a famous author, an ingenue (Ronan), an actress fading from the spotlight (Bening), and her playwright son. Corey Stoll (Non-Stop) and Billy Howle (Glue) also star, presumably as the author and young playwright, respectively.
Director Mayer has a strong background in stage productions, winning a Tony in 2007 for Spring Awakening and garnering another nomination last year for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Stephen Karam, who has adapted the play for the screen, was also a Pulitzer Prize runner-up for 2012’s Sons of Prophet.
Ronan has been a mainstay this year on the festival circuit after her films Stockholm, Pennsylvania and Brooklyn both premiered at Sundance, with the latter boasting rave reviews and distribution deal with Fox Searchlight. She is now filming the animated film Loving Vincent and can currently be seen in Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Lost River.
Bening has been pretty busy at Cannes this week, also picking up a role in the Mike Mills (Beginners) film 20th Century Women alongside Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha) and Elle Fanning (Maleficent). She will next be seen in husband Warren Beatty’s (untitled) long-awaited film centering on Howard Hughes and his affair with a younger woman, which is expected to be released later this year.
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