Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, and Fan Bingbing Are Doing A Spy Movie Together
Deadline says that next week, Jessica Chastian, Lupita Nyong’o, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, and Fan Bingbing will be the toast of Cannes when they reveal 355, their large-scale international spy movie. So it’s like the gritty, edgy baby of Atomic Blonde and Charlie’s Angels.
355 will feature all five actresses as international agents in a “grounded, edgy action thriller.” They’ll each play a spy from a different agency who gets together to form a global organization to take down a “very bad weapon.” The hope is to launch this as a thriller franchise, so the five women will be pitching the film to international investors in Cannes. The film’s director, Simon Kinberg, just directed Jessica in X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Rather than spend her downtime at the craft service table, she pitched the idea for 355 to Simon. I guess we know how well that went! Jessica says that she’s been wanting to get back in a female ensemble cast since she did The Help:
“I had so much fun working on The Help that I always wanted to do another female ensemble film. I love the Bourne movies, the Mission: Impossible films, and wondered why, except for Charlie’s Angels, there hadn’t been a true female ensemble action-thriller spy film. That got my wheels going, along with the idea of casting actresses from all over the world to truly make it an international project… Then I called all the women, told them what I was envisioning and that I wanted it to be a collaborative process, and how we would all create this together.”
Before you start to think 355 is going to focus on Jessica, she and Simon both say the idea is to give everyone equal screen time and develop each character. I’m sure part of that is to be fair, but I’m sure another part of that is because, if they pull this off, they can have 45 spinoffs and make everyone a crap-load of money. I’m sure Matt Damon would have a lot to say about women coming for that Bourne coin, but lucky for us – his lips are on strike! Halle-loo!
Pic: Wenn.com