Tracking Shot January 2011: Shame, Looper, Life of Pi and The Iron Lady

At the beginning of every month, IONCINEMA.com’s “Tracking Shot” features a handful of projects that are moments away from lensing and in the same token, we feel are worth signaling out. We ring in the new year with nine titles going into production this month that are worth pointing out. Among the projects that were originally slated for January but are slightly pushed back we have Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton’s Will starring Paul Rudd Zach Galifianakis, the new Stephen Daldry film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Polanski’s Carnage. This January can officially be called the “Abi Morgan” month as the scribe has not one but two projects that’ll be lensed: Steve McQueen’s sex addiction drama Shame, and The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

In U.S productions we have Joe Carnahan’s The Grey – which we feel is oddly down our alley with Liam Neeson fighting the elements and speaking of fighting the elements, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi is finally setting sail for a tentpole 2012 release while Rian Johnson’s Looper, his third outing as a filmmaker is still without a distributor, which is surprising when you consider the box office hit that Inception was.

In Cannes friendly filmmakers, Brillante Mendoza might torture Isabelle Huppert in a pic about a foreign missionary who is caught up in a hostage-taking of foreign nationals, Emir Kusturica returns to comedy with potentially Tahar Rahim starring in a project that is being co-produced by Johnny Depp. Alain Resnais grabs an All-star French cast for Vous n’avez encore rien vu and a filmmaker that I haven’t given up on in Cédric Kahn will lense Une Vie Meilleure starring Guillaume Canet and Leila Bekhti.

Captured
Director/Screenwriter: Brillante Mendoza
Producers: Didier Costet
Cast: Isabelle Huppert
Filming in the Philippines

Cool Water
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenwriter: Gabriel Bornstein
Producers: Mohammad Farokhmanesh, Frank Geiger, Armin Hofmann, Michel Amathieu
Cast: Tahar Rahim
Filming in Germany

The Grey
Director: Joe Carnahan 
Screenwriter: Carnahan and Ian Jeffers
Producers: Carnahan, Jules Daly, Ridley Scott and Tony Scott
Cast: Liam Neeson
Filming in Alaska

The Iron Lady
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Screenwriter: Abi Morgan
Producers: Damian Jones
Cast: Meryl Streep and Jim Brodbent
Filming in London

Life of Pi
Director: Ang Lee
Screenwriter: David Magee
Producers: Gil Netter and David Womark
Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Irrfan Khan, Tabu and introducing Suraj Sharma
Filming in India

Looper
Director/Screenwriter: Rian Johnson
Producers: Ram Bergman, James D. Stern, Steve Yedlin
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano and Bruce Willis
Filming in Louisiana

Shame
Director: Steve McQueen
Screenwriter: Abi Morgan
Producers: Iain Canning
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan and James Badge Dale
Filming in New York City

Une Vie Meilleure
Director/Screenwriter: Cédric Kahn
Screenwriter: Catherine Paille
Producers: Unknown.
Cast: Guillaume Canet and Leila Bekhti
Filming in France

Vous n’avez encore rien vu
Director: Alain Resnais
Screenwriter: Resnais and Laurent Herbiet
Producers: F Comme Film’s Jean-Louis Livi
Cast: Lambert Wilson, Mathieu Amalric, Michel Piccoli, André Dussollier, Anne Consigny, Sabine Azéma, Hippolyte Girardot, Isabelle Nanty, Jean-Pierre Bacri
Filming in France