Felicity Jones Infiltrates Zal Batmanglij’s ‘The East’

After placing a bet on Elizabeth Olsen and wagering on Brit Marling on a couple of titles, it appears that Fox Searchlight are gaga for another Sundance 2011 starlet in Felicity Jones. Among the studios that lost out on the bid to grab the North American rights to Like Crazy, it appears that Jones is being strongly considered to topline The East, Zal Batmanglij’s sophomore film which is being tagged as a dramatic thriller.

Batmanglij is the latest filmmaker to join the Fox Searchlight “stable,” the pick-up of his debut feature film Sound of My Voice, which I unfortunately left off my to do list at Sundance, was picked up by the indie disturb back in April, and will be followed by this in-house project with Marling onboard once again, but this time as the scribe, producer and actress. A summer start-date us being eyed.

Gist: Co-written by thesp Brit Marling and Batmanglij, this centers on a private contracting firm tasked with protecting big corporations from radical environmentalists and anti-business extremists, who tasks its best and brightest agent, Sarah Moss (Felicity Jones), to infiltrate a mysterious terrorist organization known only as ‘The East’.

Worth Noting: Felicity Jones will next be seen in Hysteria, which should land at TIFF in September and will next be seen in Like Crazy which is pegged with an October release date. 

Do We Care?: Too soon to tell what to make out of the project which conjures up thoughts of Hanna, the remake of Girl with a Dragon Tattoo and Domino — actresses we have trouble picturing in thrillers.