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Paramount Sets James Mangold to Direct Adaptation of 'Juliet' Novel

by Ethan Anderton
September 8, 2011
Source: Deadline

While his last film Knight & Day left something to be desired, director James Mangold will certainly get a chance to redeem himself as he's currently preparing to shoot The Wolverine, the gestating sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine with Hugh Jackman. However, it sounds like Mangold is lining up projects for after completing work on the comic book sequel as Deadline reports Paramount Pictures is working with Ivan Reitman's Montecito Picture Company banner and Mangold's own Tree Line Films for an adapatation of Anne Fortier's novel Juliet, a novel inspired by the tragic romance of Romeo and Juliet.

Here's an official synopsis of the novel:

American Julie Jacobs travels to Siena in search of her Italian heritage--and possibly an inheritance--only to discover she is descended from 14th-century Giulietta Tomei, whose love for Romeo defied their feuding families and inspired Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Julie's hunt leads her to the families' descendants, still living in Siena, still feuding, and still struggling under the curse of the friar who wished a plague on both their houses. Julie's unraveling of the past is assisted by a Felliniesque contessa and the contessa's handsome nephew, and complicated by mobsters, police, and a mysterious motorcyclist. To understand what happened centuries ago, in the previous generation, and all around her, Julie relies on relics: a painting, a journal, a dagger, a ring.

Sounds like an interesting enough story, and any reference to Federico Fellini, one of my favorite foreign filmmakers, is just fine by me. Of course, there's no telling how soon this project might get off the ground. The Wolverine doesn't start shooting until spring of 2012, and we've also previously heard that Mangold was attached to direct The Gunslinger, a revenge thriller, described as a contemporary western, that centers on an ex-Texas Ranger who sets out to punish the men who killed his brother. We're not sure of the status of that project, and if this new gig for Mangold will affect it at all, but stay tuned.

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