How do you follow We Need to Talk About Kevin, a terrifyingly chilly drama about murderous sons and brittle mothers? Why, by adapting Herman Melville in space of course! That, at least, seems to be the thoroughly obvious course of action that Lynne Ramsay is planning, telling Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo that her next project is a sci-fi based on Melville's whale-bothering Moby Dick{
“This is really the first time I’ve spoken about it; it’s been very under wraps,” says Ramsay. “Moby Dick is a fantastic novel, an American classic, and I’m working on something loosely based on that. It’s science-fiction, so we’re taking the premise into the galaxy, creating a whole new world, and a new alien. It's a very psychological piece, mainly taking place in the ship, a bit like Das Boot, so it’s quite claustrophobic.”
Last time there was talk of a new Moby Dick (not including Age of the Dragons, which was Ahab vs. giant flying lizards, starring Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones), it was under the aegis of Wanted's Timur Bekmambetov. Bekmambetov however, was apparently planning to have a more charismatic and less complex Ahab in pursuit of a whale causing havoc to other shipping, in an "action-adventure revenge story" heavy on the FX - which is a bit like adapting Crime & Punishment as a police thriller if you ask us, but hey! We're sure it'd look good.
This is not Ramsay's approach. Crucially, Ramsay believes, it isn't actually such a leap from Kevin at all, because, "It's another monster movie; the monster's Ahab, this mad captain taking everyone on this crazy journey to their death, out of his need for revenge. It's fascinating stuff."
Not a director used to working on a large scale, Ramsay says she's hoping for more money than usual, but at the same time confident that the as-yet untitled film can be done at relatively little expense: "I'm so used to low budgets; you find ways to do things economically."
It's not clear whether the film is actually set up anywhere yet, or whether Ramsay is working under her own steam at this point. But along with writing her screenplay, Ramsay reveals she's also done some early work on the visuals and the sound design, and has put together a trailer that she describes as "a little mood-board film."
Until that leaks online, here's the full interview{