It's taken Alejandro Amenabar quite a while to capitalise on the success of his Nicole Kidman-starring horror movie The Others. In fact, it's been seven years since that movie came out, although he has made the very good The Sea Inside since then. Amenabar has now finally set up his next English language film.
He'll direct Rachel Weisz and Max Minghella in Agora, which he has written with Mateo Gil. The film will be an epic tale set in Roman Egypt in the fourth century A.D. Weisz will play an astrologer, rather grandly named Hypatia of Alexandria, who is fighting to preserve the collected wisdom of the ancient world. Minghella is her assistant, who is torn between love for his mistress and the temptation of freedom that could be granted him by the rising tide of Christianity.
Oscar Isaac, Ashraf Barhom, Michael Lonsdale, Rupert Evans and Homayoun Ershadi are also in the cast.