Oscar Isaac to Star Opposite Cate Blanchett in Period Drama “Armageddon Time”

It’s Armageddon Time for Oscar Isaac

The 41-year-old Guatemalan & Cuban actor will star alongside Cate Blanchett in Armageddon Time, the period drama to be directed by James Gray for RT Features.

Oscar Isaac

Isaac joins a list of new cast members that includes Robert De NiroDonald Sutherland and Anne Hathaway

Gray wrote and will direct, and re-teams with RT Features following their recent collaboration on Ad Astra, the Brad Pitt space thriller that co-starred Sutherland. RT Features’ Rodrigo Teixeira will produce, with Lourenço Sant’Anna and Rodrigo Gutierrez executive producing.

Gray crafted a drama based on his childhood memories, a big-hearted coming-of-age story that explores friendship and loyalty against the backdrop of an America poised to elect Ronald Reagan as president. It’s very different from his recent pictures, and he hopes to shoot in New York as soon as post-pandemic opportunities make it possible. 

“Every film you make is different, but I’m trying to do something that is the opposite of the vast, lonely and dark void of the movie I just directed,” Gray said. “I’m anxious to make something that is very much about people, about human emotions and interactions between people, and I want it to be filled with warmth and tenderness. In some sense, yes it’s about my childhood, but an illustration of familial love really on every level. I’m of the belief that most people do their best and that they try their best under difficult circumstances and in some sense that’s a beautiful thing and very moving to me.” 

Ana de Armas In Talks to Star in Film Adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s Novel “Deep Water”

Ana de Armasmay soon find herself in deep water…

The 31-year-old Cuban-Spanish actress is in talks to star opposite Ben Affleck in the film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Deep Water.

Ana de Armas

The film, to be directed by Adrian Lyne, is described as an erotic thriller, right in the wheelhouse Lyne established with such blockbusters as Indecent ProposalFatal Attraction, and 9 1/2 Weeks. The filmmaker has long been intrigued with this project, first setting it up with Fox 2000back in 2013. New Regency bought control of the property last year, and this gives them another plum project to go with the James Gray-directed Ad Astra with Brad Pitt, and the Robert Eggers-directed The Lighthouse.

Affleck and de Armas are in negotiations to play Vic and Melinda Van Allen, an attractive young married couple whose mind games with each other take a twisted turn when people around them start turning up dead. The couple staves off divorce in a loveless marriage by allowing each to take lovers, but it becomes messy as Highsmith exposed the surface facade of American suburban life.

Zack Helm and Sam Levinson have adapted from the Highsmith novel.

Lyne is eyeing a November production start on Deep Water, which will be fully financed by New Regency

Pending all the pieces falling into place, the plan is for the film to go through its deal with Fox/Disney.

de Armas is having her moment in Hollywood. She is about to begin shooting the Andrew Dominik-directed Netflix film Blonde, in which she plays iconic actress Marilyn Monroe, with talks going on for Adrien Brody to play Arthur Miller and Bobby Cannavale to play Joe DiMaggio in a fictionalized look at her life. Dominik worked for years on this project, and looked at many actresses for the role of Monroe. He was intrigued when he saw de Armas in Blade Runner 2049, and they worked long and hard with a dialect coach to lose her Cuban accented inflection for Monroe’s breathy delivery before a screen test pleased Netflix and Plan B’s Brad PittDede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. She follows that film with the James Bond 25 film.