Ari Aster’s ‘Disappointment Blvd’ Starring Joaquin Phoenix Adds ‘The Favourite’ & ‘Cruella’ Production Designer Fiona Crombie

Filmmaker Ari Aster is looking to follow-up Midsommar with Disappointment Blvd starring Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix (Joker, Her, The Master), which is set to begin production sometime next week in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and wrap in October.

Details are scarce about Aster’s third film outside of Phoenix playing a successful entrepreneur.

An intimate, decades-spanning portrait of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time.

The Ronin can confirm that Aster has brought on Oscar nominated production designer Fiona Crombie to Disappointment Blvd’s production team, who worked on the Oscar-winning period comedy The Favourite and Disney’s well-received Cruella (already getting a sequel) that both starred Emma Stone.

There is also an expectation that he’ll, yet again, reunite with his cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski after working him on Hereditary and Midsommar. The director of photography just happens to hail from Montreal and was behind the camera on the Bob Odenkirk action flick Nobody.

A24 is said to be bringing the film to the Cannes Film Market seeking distribution partners, according to Screen Daily. Having Joaquin Phoenix attached after winning a Best Actor Oscar for the billion-dollar hit Joker, likely means they’ll be fielding multiple offers.

Phoenix is set to star in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon epic Kitbag for Apple with Jodie Comer as his co-star and is newly attached to co-star with Rooney Mara in director Lynne Ramsey’s next project Polaris.

Yorgos Lanthimos Nabs Emma Stone & Willem Dafoe For His Next Film ‘Poor Things’ – A Satirical Postmodern Revision of ‘Frankenstein’

Deadline reports that filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite) is moving foward with his next film Poor Things at Searchlight Pictures and Film4. The project is an adaptation of the Alasdair Gray novel that is sort of a satirical take on the Victorian novel and a postmodern spin on the Frankenstein tale, as Bella Baxter is a beautiful young woman brought back to life after drowning with the aide of science and the brain of an infant.

Emma Stone, who worked with Yorgos on the Oscar-winning film The Favourite has landed the role of of Bella and Willem Dafoe has taken another undisclosed role as he’s currently in discussions.

One of Alasdair Gray’s most brilliant creations, Poor Things is a postmodern revision of Frankenstein that replaces the traditional monster with Bella Baxter – a beautiful young erotomaniac brought back to life with the brain of an infant. Godwin Baxter’s scientific ambition to create the perfect companion is realized when he finds the drowned body of Bella, but his dream is thwarted by Dr. Archibald McCandless’s jealous love for Baxter’s creation.

The hilarious tale of love and scandal that ensues would be “the whole story” in the hands of a lesser author (which in fact it is, for this account is actually written by Dr. McCandless). For Gray, though, this is only half the story, after which Bella (a.k.a. Victoria McCandless) has her own say in the matter. Satirizing the classic Victorian novel, Poor Things is a hilarious political allegory and a thought-provoking duel between the desires of men and the independence of women, from one of Scotland’s most accomplished author.

It’s unclear when production will begin.

SOURCE: DEADLINE