God of Carnage

A major decade’s long sex scandal? House arrest in Switzerland? The inability to return to the United States?

These are serious things, no doubt, but legendary auteur Roman Polanski does not slow down—for anything. He’s got a new film in the works, in fact. Polanski is casting for his big screen version of Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning play, “God of Carnage.”

Jody Foster and Kate Winslet are to star. Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) will also star in Polanski’s adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning play. Insiders tell the Bureau that the second male lead isn’t cast yet. Shooting begins in Paris in February for 12 weeks. Although the film is set in Brooklyn, Polanski’s legal troubles mean that he has to shoot in France. The Academy Award-winning director cannot enter the US due to allegations against him for unlawful sexual conduct with a minor in 1977. The film is being co-produced by French producer SBS and Constantin Film of Germany.

SBS recently produced Reza’s feature directing debut Chicas, which starred Polanski’s wife Emmanuelle Seigner. Jeff Berg of ICM has been packaging the project since Reza first disclosed she was adapting her play with the Academy Award-winning director this summer. Pathe and UGC are both vying to be French distributor. God of Carnage tells the story of two sets of parents who meet after their sons are involved in a schoolyard fight. The meeting goes disastrously wrong as each pair attacks the other’s parenting skills before turning on each other about problems in their own marriages.

The show ran for 452 performances on Broadway before closing in June. James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis originally starred. God of Carnage won three Tony awards, including Best Play.