Last we heard, Austrian arch-miserablist Michael Haneke's follow-up to his mesmerising The White Ribbon was to be Ces Deux; a drama on the "humiliation and physical deterioration of the aged". It was set to shoot in France this summer with Isabelle Huppert and Louis Trintignant.
But The Playlist are reporting that Haneke has abandoned the film, after seeing "a Canadian project on a similar subject" (they suggest that it was either Sarah Polley's Away From Her or Denys Arcand's The Barbarian Invasions) and is now prepping a new screenplay about the internet. It's possible that Huppert and Trintignant will stay on for the ride.
No other specific details are yet forthcoming, but given that this is Haneke, the director of the furious Funny Games (both times), Time of the Wolf and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, it's safe to assume that an internet project in his hands will not be a dot-com sit-com about a hip-hop chip shop. The script isn't finished yet, but is due for completion in the autumn, when an international shoot will get going, taking in the US and Japan. A Short Cuts / Magnolia / Babel-esque global collection of interwoven online lives? Whatever, we're guessing that it'll be an exploration of the darker corners of the worldwide web, and of its less healthy effects.
No, not quite like Gamer.