Mandate Pictures’ dramady Great Hope Springs has begun to generate some serious heat recently, with Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges in negotiations to bring their Oscar-nabbing talents to the lead roles and now another award winner eying the director’s chair in the shape of Mike Nichols.
Earlier reports had** **I Am Sam**’s Jessie Nelson attached to take the helm, but now, according to the wrap, Nichols has his beady peeper on the job, mostly thanks to the quality cast it is attracting.
If they do sign, Streep and Bridges will play a couple who turn to an intense weekend counselling session to figure out the fate of their 30 year marriage. The quality of Vanessa Taylor’s script had also got Philip Seymour Hoffman's attention, though it sounds like he’s had to drop out because of a scheduling clash.
This sounds the sort of film that Nichols can crank out easily – and brilliantly. While he’s still also flirting with the idea of an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s **Deep Water, Great Hope Springs could end up being his follow-up to 2008’s Charlie Wilson’s War. Oh, and a possible reunion with Streep, who he last directed to Oscar-nominated effect in 1983's Silkwood…