Flora Flowers Again

After being shelved a full two years ago, Jodie Foster's pet project Flora Plum is happily back on track care of our favourite wee Scot, Ewan McGregor. Set in the 1930s, Foster's tale revolves around a penniless girl who is taken in by a circus freak and as he falls in love with the scheming lass, she launches a career in the circus herself. It's all career, career, career with some girls, isn't it? With Foster reportedly turning down a reprisal of Clarice Starling for her "All About Eve in a circus," the film was set to go into production in 2000 with Russell Crowe lined up to star opposite Claire Danes taking time out of her study at Yale to play the manipulative young Flora. But then disaster struck in the shape of a shoulder injury to the apparently invulnerable Crowe and Foster's dream lay in tatters. So who better than the marvellous McGregor to step into the ring to declare the whole shebang back in action? Taking on the role originally set for Crowe, McGregor will also star opposite Danes with production scheduled for either Autumn next year or January 2004. With this being a Foster effort and all, that's far too long to wait.