Roger Donaldson directed The Bank Job in 2008, but his next project is a financial thriller of a different kind, even if the dealings of some of its characters will be no less shady. Cities** will star Clive Owen and Anil Kapoor in a cautionary tale about the global stock market.
The title is truncated from the Extreme Cities of Glenn Wilhide's original script, and the places in question are London, New York and Mumbai.
At this stage Cities sounds superficially like a sort of Wall Street with a **Babel **structure, with one of the three intersecting stories based in each location. As the Dow Jones index reaches its all-time high, Big Apple hedge fund manager Owen grabs for ever greater quantities of money and power (and sex); a young English couple struggle to find their first house deposit as prices skyrocket; and in Mumbai, cop Kapoor comes up against corruption among property developers and his own colleagues.
"Cities is a project that I am very enthusiastic about," says Donaldson. "Set in the great cities of the world this film will tell a story for our time while also being a relevant, dramatic, exciting and a highly watchable movie."
Matthew Metcalfe, Chris Curling and a certain Julie Christie are producing, with the globe-trotting shoot due to start in October.