14 DAY TRIAL // Actor Joaquin Phoenix, who’s coming off the critically acclaimed “Her” from Spike Jonze, has signed on for the next Woody Allen film which will be a romantic comedy. Called “Magic in the Moonlight,” it is believed to go into production soon, Deadline reports.
Other than that – and the fact that it will star Phoenix –, not many details on the film are available, but that’s typical of a Woody Allen film. He usually likes to keep the secret until the last moment.
Deadline says the pic is “about an Englishman brought in to help unmask a possible swindle in the south of France in the 1920s against a backdrop of wealthy mansions, the Côte d’Azur, jazz joints and fashionable spots for the wealthy of the Jazz Age.”
I imagine Phoenix will be playing lead.
The casting news comes as a bit of surprise, especially considering Dylan Farrow’s plea in February to actors to stop working with Allen because of the things he did to her when she was just a kid and he was married to her mother Mia Farrow.
Then again, an older investigation concluded that Dylan’s allegations were false and that she’d been coached by Mia to say those horrible things. Actors who worked with Allen in recent years, most notably Cate Blanchett who won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2013 for “Blue Jasmine,” had already said they had no plans to boycott the director by refusing parts in his movies.
Phoenix seems to be among them.