Peter Webber has a history of using paintings as inspiration for movies: he made 2003's Girl With A Pearl Earring based on Johannes Vermeer's art. He's back with a new idea, and has Pierce Brosnan, Jesse Eisenberg and Vanessa Redgrave starring in The Medusa.
Eisenberg is playing Theodore Gericault, a 19th century pioneer of the French Romantic movement, who drew inspiration from the sinking of a French frigate to paint his masterpiece The Raft Of The Medusa. Lost at sea during the reign of King Louis XVIII, the survivors of the wreck told of trouble aboard and cannibalism after the wreck, and the resulting art fired up anti-royalist sentiment.
Brosnan will be Gericault's uncle Caruel, who despises his talented nephew and is sworn to destroy him, while Redgrave will be playing the artist's anti-royalist innkeeper.
Sophia Al-Maria has written the screenplay, adapted from Jonathan Miles' book The Wreck Of The Medusa. Webber is aiming to kick off shooting in the autumn.
"Before the sinking of the Titanic, the story of Medusa was the greatest sea disaster people had heard of," producer Raffaella De Laurentiis tells Screen International. "I was captivated the first time I saw Gericault’s painting of it in the Louvre and for the next twenty years I wanted to see it become a film. So, it was a joy to discover that Peter Webber had conceived of a way to tell the story from the painter’s perspective that made it emotional and poignant within the epic scope of the tragedy."
Brosnan in on TV screens now in Western The Son and has several films on the way including Final Score, The Foreigner and The Only Living Boy In New York. Eisenberg has been developing projects based on his writing and will be on screens in Justice League this November. Redgrave recently joined Christoph Waltz' directorial debut Georgetown and directed her own film, documentary Sea Sorrow.
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