Even given his occasional onscreen dabbling as a tough guy, we're not we'd have cast Matt Dillon as a serial killer. But then we're not Lars von Trier, and he has the actor starring with Bruno Ganz in new pic The House That Jack Built.
Though the name has made people quick to jump on the idea that this is about Jack The Ripper, it actually appears to be more about an original creation inspired by the lethal lunatic. Dillon will be the title character, a smart killer trying to perfect what he sees as art, while Ganz is playing the mysterious Verge, who talks to him about his actions and thoughts. It'll be set across a 12-year period from the 1970s into the 1980s, but presented in non-linear fashion, jumping around in time.
"The two gentlemen have each figured as milestones in my cinematic development," says von Trier. "Besides being an epochal match, they are excellent actors and fit quite organically into ‘my cinematic family.’ I look forward with pleasure and pride to working with them both." Once he has cast four important female roles, von Trier aims to kick off shooting in Trollhattan, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark next spring. Despite that Euro-centric schedule, the movie will be set in the US and should arrive in 2018. Still, even with the serial killing angle, it can't be any more terrifying than Shia LaBeouf's sex face in Nymphomaniac.