We knew that Plan B was producing Steve McQueen’s
Twelve Years A Slave, but we didn’t know that main man Brad Pitt would
take on a role
in the period drama, alongside Michael Fassbender and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
This project just keeps sounding better. The idea of Fassbender and
Pitt together in the same film is almost too good to be true; let’s hope
further casting updates on this project are as promising.
The Tree of Life team of Bill Pohlad’s River Road and Patrick
Wachsberger’s Summit International will co-produce; Summit will handle
foreign pre-sales at November’s American Film Market.
More information on
Twelve Years A Slave (from our
earlier story) below:
Following
Hunger and
Shame, Fassbender and McQueen
will bring to life the true story of Solomon Northup (Ejiofor), a
citizen of New York who was kidnapped and enslaved in 1841, before being
saved from a Louisiana cotton plantation twelve years later.
Fassbender will presumably play the Canadian carpenter who frees him.
McQueen co-wrote the script with John Ridley off Northup’s 1853 memoir.
Plan B is producing and CAA is arranging financing. Even if McQueen and
Fassbender don’t receive Awards love this season for the transgressive,
graphic and full frontal—and now officially NC-17—
Shame, they’re moving forward with another potential powerhouse;
Twelve Years A Slave is gearing up to shoot in early 2012.
