After an unusual 12 months for
Sam Mendes that included him nearly directing
a big screen Preacher movie, coming even closer to making
his first blockbuster with Bond 23, and more recently putting his hat in the ring
to helm The Great and Powerful Oz - Britain's top dramatic helmer has gone back to more familiar terrain this week.
Deadline report that Mendes has picked
Ian McEwan's 2007 novel On Chesil Beach as his next project at Focus Features, and that
Carey Mulligan is already in talks to lead. McEwan is adapting his own novel;
which takes place in the UK in 1963 and revolves around two repressed virgins in their early twenties whose attempt to consummate ends badly. Their futile attempt at lovemaking leads to doubt and recriminations.
Mulligan would play Florence, a sexually repressed violinist who is the female half of the couple. The novel is very much about adjusting to love at the dawning of a sexual awakening 1960's Britain, and this kind of post-married dissection of life and love is obviously Mendes' favourite subject. He has explored it to great lengths in
American Beauty and
Revolutionary Road - and
On Chesil Beach swims in the same sea as those. And we should note this will be the first movie he has made since publicly announcing his split with wife
Kate Winslet after nearly ten years of marriage and although we don't usually gossip on this site - this attachment might be a good indicator as to where his mindset might be right now... McEwan's previous novels
Enduring Love,
Atonement,
The Comfort of Strangers and
The Cement Garden have all made it to the big screen, and for the most part have been worthwhile cinematic endeavours for the great talent McEwan's work can attract. Meanwhile, Deadline also report that Mendes is set to direct a stage musical version of Roald Dahl's
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for Warner Bros. after a successful reading of the first act in New York last week.
A late 2011 premiere in London is planned, with a move to Broadway to follow afterwards.
Marc Shaiman and
Scott Wittman wrote the songs,
David Greighas adapted the story - and an elaborate set is being planned for the factory itself. Looking further ahead, Mendes has told Disney that he no longer wants to be considered for the
Oz prequel but has informed MGM that he still very much wants to make
Bond 23 - but nobody in the industry sees that happening anytime soon with the financial woes that plague that studio.