- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday May 23 2007 10.13 BST
- The Guardian, Wednesday May 23 2007
Ethan and Joel Coen at Cannes 2007
Working Title, Britain's most successful film company and the outfit behind movies from Four Weddings and a Funeral to United 93, is to renew its working relationship with the Coen brothers.
George Clooney, Brad Pitt and John Malkovich are lined up to star in Burn After Reading, described by Working Title co-chief Eric Fellner as "a comedy spy movie set in Washington. A guy gets himself into a certain position, then everything starts to unravel and spin out of control through a series of mistakes and miscalculations - not unlike, say, Fargo."
The announcement comes at an excellent moment, given that the Coens' latest movie, No Country for Old Men, has played to great acclaim at Cannes and sees them back on form after the disappointing Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty.
Working Title has contributed to Coen films such as Barton Fink, Fargo and The Big Lebowski. "They are coming back to us because we love them personally and professionally," Fellner says. "They left us because they were working on screenplays that belonged to other studios, but the minute they started on original work again, they have come back."
Shooting starts in mid-August in Washington and New York; another Coen brothers film, A Serious Man - which Fellner calls "a very small, very personal film" - will follow.
Also on Working Title's slate is a film starring Julia Roberts as the Kenyan environmental campaigner Joan Root, who was shot dead at her home in January this year. The company is also working with Richard Curtis, who will direct a comedy about a pirate radio station.
