Paltrow Finds A ‘Young One’ in Elle Fanning

Alongside Chloe Moretz, the tween member in the Fanning family is clearly the go-to choice for pre-teen roles these days. After her take in Coppola’s Somewhere, and parts in the upcoming, highly anticipated pics such as J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 and Frances Ford Coppola’s Twixt now and Sunrise, Elle Fanning is looking to keep a solid footing in indie film sphere. With recent casting mentions for The Shaggs and Van Fischer’s Pure Life, the 13-year-old is in talks to share the screen with Casey Affleck and Jamie Bell in the upcoming futuristic sci-fi film Young Ones. Jake Paltrow would be doing double duty on this feature as both writer and director, while Noah Baumbach is set to produce.

Gist: Think the antithesis of a certain 1995 Kevin Costner film, this takes place in the near future, where water is a scarce commodity. A teenage cowboy is grieving over the death of his father when he discovers that his fathers’ killer has moved in with his sister, and the introduction of sci-fi technology threatens to claim more lives.

Worth Noting: Paltrow and Baumbach co-directed, developed and shot (or are currently shooting) a top secret documentary film on both coasts. We imagine we’ll be hearing more about the project later in the year and this has nothing to do with Baumbach’s While We’re Young.

Do We Care?: As we’ve seen with Margot at the Wedding and The Squid and the Whale, Baumbach’s specialty is character driven films which center around family dysfunction. It’s one of the reasons we enjoy his films so much. But with penned projects such as Tower Heist (which also stars Affleck) and Madagascar 3, this sci-fi water-is-scarce and my sister’s living with our fathers’ killer logline is one more far fetched idea for the filmmaker/producer. Maybe this collaboration with Baumbach will be an opportunity for Paltrow to show us more interesting and well rounded characters in the sci-fi genre, they certainly need to be more developed than those that appeared in his debut film, The Good Night. One of our favourite indie prod co. in Parts and Labor are producing – so we look forward to both upcoming projects.