Updated: Ok, so this is pretty much the most childish Internet hoax we've seen in a while. It's the last week in April, but some idiots decided to pass themselves off as Francis Ford Coppola's production company American Zoetrope and pull an April Fool's Day fast one, fabricating the news that
Sofia Coppola and
Kirsten Dunst were to re-team for the third time in their careers on the mysterious new project,
Secret Door. The hoax was exposed earlier today, Kirsten Dunst's reps remarking to
The Playlist;
I know theyd love to work together again but this project doesnt even exist. Wishful thinking from someone!
Original but now totally false news report follows... It's been 8 years since
Lost in Translation. Scary, huh? It almost doesn't seem like five minutes ago that
Sofia Coppola, the daughter of the legendary Francis Ford Coppola, made a movie that was so fresh, so distinct and so full of soul that it felt like the birth of a new generation's freewheelin' Richard Linklater. That movie was my favourite film of 2003 and would easily make my top ten of the last decade. Since then, the female writer/director has only furthered that assumption with two movies that are unmistakeably her sole, brazen vision on screen. Movies that only she could make. The problem being that I haven't enjoyed either of them. The self-indulgent
Marie Antoinette came in 2006 which awkwardly tried to be a pop-record and modernist portrayal of the lonely and secluded life of an 18th century Queen in France that felt lightweight on themes and had no interest in the politics of the time, and
Somewhere - a movie with no plot, that regurgitated the best scenes of Lost in Translation with worse actors, less feeling and less humour and was overall just excruciatingly painful to sit through. Both movies have their supporters however and Somewhere did win the Golden Lion for Best Picture at the Venice Film Festival last year, so perhaps we just didn't 'get them', which is ironic giving that was the response I most met with from people when I recommended Lost in Translation to them in 2003 and that response always did frustrate me! However my love of Lost in Translation and my enjoyment of her earlier film
The Virgin Suicides will forever keep me excited about a new project carrying her voice. Announced a couple of hours ago on
American Zoetrope's twitter account (Francis Ford Coppola's production company and backer of all four of her films) was
Secret Door, a new mysterious movie that will star
Kirsten Dunst, who starred in both The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antioniette. The tweet says;
Happy to announce that Kirsten Dunst has agreed to be in Sofia Coppolas new film Secret Door. Script is still being finished. Stay tuned!
As far as I'm aware this is a brand new project and the first mention of it anywhere. A new Coppola film always makes for exciting times and the inclusion of Dunst is a positive. I have to say I've admired Dunst's career choices and work lately after being dumped alongside Tobey Maguire from the Spider-Man series at Sony. I enjoyed her work in
All Good Things and I can't wait to see what's she's done with Lars Von Trier's
Melancholia that debuts in Cannes next month. (thanks to
The Playlist for the heads-up).