Stephen Daldry and Working Title's take on Trash, a children's novel set on the rubbish dumps of the Third World, has added Martin Sheen and Rooney Mara to its roster. No word on who they'll be playing in the crime-and-poverty thriller, but we hope Sheen will be kindly and avuncular for at least portions of the movie.
Richard Curtis, not content with directing the upcoming time-travel romance About Time, adapted Andy Mulligan’s recently-published novel. The book follows three boys in Behala, West Bengal, who survive by scavenging in rubbish mounds, but filming is scheduled for Brazil, so expect a shift in locales to the terrain explored by Lucy Walker's **Waste Land.
Regardless of location, **Trash **still rates highly on the Slumdog Millio-metre we've hastily cobbled together from bits of sticky-back plastic and this arrow made of old loo rolls. When the boys, Raphael, Gardo and Rat (played by newbies Rickson Tevez, Eduardo Luis and Gabriel Weinstein), discover a leather bag, its contents thrust them into a dangerous world of corporate and government corruption and see them aiming to find some justice.
Speaking of sticky-back plastic, the book proved too hot for Blue Peter. The BBC show ditched it from its book awards for depicting scenes "unsuitable" for its core audience of under-12s. With its unsparing glimpses at poverty and crime, **Trash **could prove especially pertinent in the lead up to the World Cup and Rio 2016, and against the backdrop of the recent protests in Brazil. Expect it in May 2014.