With a certain actor known round these parts as T. Hiddy squatting in the lead for his J.G. Ballard adaptation High-Rise, director Ben Wheatley has been busy rounding up other cast members. He’s now picked Jeremy Irons and Sienna Miller{
The Sightseers director is set to kick off shooting this July in Belfast, adapting Ballard’s dystopian 1975 tome. High-Rise is set in a gleaming new residential tower built just as Margaret Thatcher is ascending to power. Designed to showcase luxury lifestyles, it’s a world apart from the troubles in other areas of the city.
Robert Laing (Hiddleston, for it is he) is seduced by the romance of the tower and, impressed by visionary architect Anthony Royal (Irons), takes up residence while also starting a relationship with Royal’s devoted aide Charlotte (Miller). But something is rotten in the heart of the building and soon Laing realises it’s a pressure cooker of problems waiting to burst and prodded by a charismatic troublemaker named Wilder. Soon, the residents are forming tribal factions, and the violence is rising. There will be blood…
With a script by Wheatley and regular writing partner/wife Amy Jump, **High-Rise **will be threatening our cinematic skyline next year. Given the director’s work so far, we are very excited at the prospect.
Irons is part of the cast for Zack Snyder’s still untitled Batman/Superman this year, playing loyal butler Alfred, who we hope can occasionally cheer up this guy. As for Miller, she’ll be seen in Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher.