Director Claire Denis is putting the pieces together for her surprising and enticing science fiction English-language debut. She already has Robert Pattinson and Mia Goth in the cast and has now added Patricia Arquette{
The film, which has yet to lock down a title, features a script by White Teeth author Zadie Smith and her husband Nick Laird, based on an idea conceived by Denis and regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau.
And with Screen International’s latest report on the film comes a few more details on what we can expect from the story, which had already been mentioned as taking place in space, in a future time that feels like the present. Now we know that the idea will be a Suicide Squad-style mission for skilled criminals facing death sentences or life behind bars who are offered a potentially fatal space mission to find new energy sources in return for pardons or reduced sentences.
There is an eclectic group collaborating on the design and development of the new film including artist Olafur Eliasson, astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau, a specialist in black holes and cosmology, and musician Stuart Staples, who wrote tracks for Denis' White Material and another of her movies, The Intruder.
Arquette, who won an Oscar for Boyhood this year, is part of the cast for indie mystery The Wannabe and is producing gender equality documentary Equal Means Equal. She’s also the lead in the one remaining CSI spin-off on TV, CSI: Cyber.