With the film festival season now in full swing, casting news is beginning to seep out left, right and centre as Hollywood’s talent is snapped up for future projects. One of whom is While We’re Young star Naomi Watts who, according to Deadline, has put pen to paper to join Jean-Marc Valle’s romantic drama, Demolition.
The esteemed British thesp joins Jake Gyllenhaal for the project, with the actor playing an investment banker out of luck and out of love after losing his wife in tragic circumstances. Enter Ms. Watts, who has the chance to get the protagonist’s life back on course following a happenstance crossing of paths.
While the premise itself seems a far cry from original on the face of it, it’s worth keeping in mind that Jean-Marc Valle’s directed last year’s excellent and intense drama Dallas Buyers Club. And though this isn’t the filmmaker’s current project — that title is held by the current frontrunner of the Venice film festival, Wild — we’re willing to give Demolition the benefit of the doubt based purely on the talent alone (both behind and in front of the camera).
At this time, we don’t know much about the exact story arc bar the aforementioned and all to brief synopsis. However, we do understand that the script for Demolition comes by way of Bryan Sipe after it was revived from Hollywood’s infamous black list — and, let’s face it, quite often that’s a Pandora’s box of discarded ideas that can serve up a genuine surprise.
With principal photography set to kick off on September 15th in the Big Apple itself, we can look forward to Watts and Gyllenhaal on screen in Demolition in 2015.