So the "Tadpole Effect" kicked director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon pretty hard in the teeth last year. That's because his film Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was the talk of Sundance and was bought for a pretty good amount, only to flop when released into theaters. He followed that by departing the star-studded Will Smith film Collateral Beauty, which is moving on with him and looks like a potential awards contender. But that hasn't stopped him from lining up one major project after another, and now he's adding one more that has a lot of promise.
Gomez-Rejon is attached to direct Siracusa, an adaptation of Delia Ephron's upcoming novel about a group of friends who travel to Italy where past secrets and infidelities are exposed. The story is told Rashomon-style, so expect to see it all play out from multiple points of view. Here's the synopsis for the book which is to be published this summer...
"An electrifying novel about marriage and deceit from bestselling author Delia Ephron that follows two couples on vacation in Siracusa, a town on the coast of Sicily, where the secrets they have hidden from each other are exposed and relationships are unraveled.
New Yorkers Michael, a famous writer, and Lizzie, a journalist, travel to Italy with their friends from Maine — Finn, his wife Taylor, and their daughter Snow. “From the beginning,” says Taylor, “it was a conspiracy for Lizzie and Finn to be together.” Told Rashomon-style in alternating points of view, the characters expose and stumble upon lies and infidelities past and present. Snow, ten years old and precociously drawn into a far more adult drama, becomes the catalyst for catastrophe as the novel explores collusion and betrayal in marriage."
No firm start date for this one yet, but it's not like Gomez-Rejon will be hurting for things to do. He's set to direct The Current War with Jake Gyllenhaal and Benedict Cumberbatch, and he's also got Oscar Isaac ready to star in A Foreigner. [Deadline]
