Things have been relatively quiet recently surrounding the ambitious planned adaptation of David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas, which is being spearheaded by Perfume: The Story of a Murderer’s Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis. But with buyers circling the project at Cannes, word arrives that Hugo Weaving and Ben Whishaw have joined the cast.
Neither of the new arrivals is a big surprise – Weaving has worked with the Wachowskis on The Matrix movies and V for Vendetta, and Whishaw got his big screen break in Perfume.
They’ll appear alongside the likes of Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, who has been moved from “rumoured” to “confirmed” on the cast list. All the actors will apparently be playing multiple roles, which is likely to be part of the draw.
It’s not yet known how much of Mitchell’s sprawling tome the three writer/directors will be able to squeeze into the film, but they have plenty of plotlines to choose from.** Cloud Atlas** tells six stories that loosely interconnect, including one following a 19th century American notary, one about a broke British musician in the 1930s, a vanity press publisher in the present day and a rebellious clone in the near future. So not your average filmic fodder, then…
The three filmmakers will start shooting in the autumn.