It's always sad when the great Rachel Weisz has to leave an eagerly awaited project such as The Railway Man, but in this case it's for a good reason. According to TheDailyMail, the actress had to bow out in order to complete reshoots on Oz the Great and Powerful and The Bourne Legacy, which are poised to be huge.
Stepping in to fill her shoes is the suddenly very busy Nicole Kidman, stepping into the adaptation of Eric Lomax's memoir. Colin Firth is set to star as the British Army officer, who was captured by the Japanese during WWII and sent to a Thailand POW camp. There he and the other prisoners were forced labor for the Burma railway, the building of which was depicted in The Bridge On the River Kwai. Kidman will play Lomax's wife, Patricia Wallace, who helps him overcome the effects of his imprisonment. Lomax would ultimately reconcile with some of the men who held him captive. War Horse star Jeremy Irvine will play Lomax as a younger man, with Firth the older version.
Jonathan Teplitzky(Burning Man) is directing, with a script by Frank Cottrell Boyce(Millions). Kidman just yesterday took on the lead in Rowan Joffe's amnesia thriller, Before I Go To Sleep, adding to an already packed 2012. She'll be seen next in The Paperboy for Lee Daniels, and then Park Chan-Wook's English language debut, Stoker.
