The screenplay is being written by Tom Stoppard and the film’s being directed by Joe Wright, who helped make Keira a star.
Stoppard’s adaptation of Tolstoy’s tear-jerking classic, about a married woman who becomes a social outcast when she has an affair with an aristocrat, was commissioned by London-based studio Working Title.
Tragic heroine: Keira Knightley is first choice to play the lead in Tolstoy's tear-jerking classic
Wright, who made Pride And Prejudice and Atonement, featuring two of Keira’s best performances, has talked with his number one leading lady about the idea of playing one of the most tragic heroines of 19th-century Russian literature.
But no deals have been done and there’s some way to go before the picture is even given the official go-ahead.
Tim Bevan, who runs Working Title with Eric Fellner, explained Stoppard’s screenplay is due before Christmas.
‘We’re developing a number of projects with Joe, and Anna Karenina is one of them,’ Bevan told me.
He added that early in the spring they will go over several scripts destined for Wright, including one by Abi Morgan based on The Little Mermaid fairy tale, ‘and we’ll decide what looks like the most sensible thing to do’.
Bevan continued: ‘I’m not saying I’ve made up my mind, but there’s something about Anna Karenina, Tom Stoppard and Joe Wright that sounds right.’
Anna Karenina has been the ‘go to’ posh literary heroine since the early days of the
movies. Greta Garbo played her twice, in a silent version called Love in 1926 and in Clarence Brown’s 1935 interpretation with Fredric March as her lover Count Vronsky and Basil Rathbone as her seemingly cold-hearted husband Karenin.
Helen McCrory led a TV version a decade ago, with Kevin McKidd playing Vronsky and Stephen Dillane as a Karenin who finally made sense on the screen.
As Bevan noted, the story always tugs at your heartstrings because Anna stays in her
marriage not wishing to divorce, because at that time she would have had to relinquish her son.
Wright’s new thriller, Hanna, with Cate Blanchett, will be released in April.
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