Good news, everyone! Try to put Jack and The Rainmaker out of your mind for a minute, and rejoice at the prospect of one of America's greatest filmmakers returning to his rightful place, in the foldy-picnic chair marked 'director'. Yes, after eight years, Francis Ford Coppola has a new project.
He's decided to put aside his operations dabbling in the wine and hotel businesses to adapt, direct and produce "Youth Without Youth", a low budget thriller (of sorts) set in the years just before World War II. Apparently the story, adapted from a 1988 novella by Mircea Eliade, centres on a professor who finds himself a fugitive, pursued across Europe and India, resulting from a 'cataclysmic incident'.
The cast is set to include Tim Roth, Maria Lara, and Bruno Ganz – who most will remember from Wim Wenders' Wings Of Desire, though who also was recently so memorable as Hitler in Downfall.
Perhaps the whole indie thing of the last decade (including the success of his little girl) has rubbed off on Francis, and we're glad to see that he's shrugged off the Hollywood Studio-sent gangster scripts, and decided to go his own way again. Word has it that he has been in Romania since February, and has already secretly scouted all of his locations, and chosen to work largely out of Bucharest.
No word of a release date yet, and given his previous track record for overages in all areas, we're not even going to guess at a release date. We'll just wish Francis good luck, and request that he take his time, and get it the way he wants it.