God bless Christopher Nolan. Thanks to his masterful direction, Inception has become the most talked about film of the year and a bonafide hit, and his international cast is now enjoying the spoils of success. Just a day after we found out that Tom Hardy would replace Sam Worthington in 20th Century Fox’s action-comedy This Means War, Deadline reports that Cillian Murphy, who played Robert Fischer in the twisty, sci-fi action opus, has picked up a role in a new psychological thriller titled The Retreat.
The story centers on a husband and wife who rent a remote island cottage while trying to repair their marriage. One day they find a biohazard-suited soldier washed up on the beach, who warns them that everybody on the mainland has been killed by an airborne virus. That’s when the paranoia, mental breakdowns and socio-psychological allegories kick in.
First time writer-director Carl Tibbetts will helm the film and though an untried auteur doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence in what sounds like an ambitious and cerebral project, I have faith in it based on it’s solid cast. Thandie Newton has been locked to play Murphy’s wife, and that pairing should make you very excited. Both of these performers are incredibly versatile and talented – Murphy’s proved it in films like 28 Days Later, Red Eye and Breakfast on Pluto while Newton has shown us time and time again that she should be a go-to leading lady in Hollywood with her work in Beloved, Crash and The Pursuit of Happiness among others. Add in David Tennant as the mysterious soldier who puts the fear into the unsuspecting couple and you’ve got a highly anticipated movie on the horizon.
There is no start date yet, as all of the players are currently hard at work on various projects, but we’ll be following the development of this one very closely as it’s got “cult favorite” written all over.
Source: Deadline
