How Will Director Tom Hooper Follow-Up The King's Speech?
Posted 03.02.11 by Ryan
Now that Tom Hooper has won the Best Director Oscar for Best Picture recipient The King's Speech, the question remains: what will Hooper direct next? Since Hooper finished shooting King's Speech a year ago, the director has yet to accept another gig, though there have been offers. The LA Times reports that Hooper was offered the director's chair for Iron Man 3, but turned it down. Shane Black was hired instead.
While Hooper has settled on nothing so far, he is rumored for several projects. According to the same Times report, Hooper was "weighing" an offer to direct an adaptation of literary classic Les Miserables, but unlike his King's Speech actor Geoffrey Rush's 1998 non-musical version, Hooper's version would be a big-budget musical. Hooper had also told The Times previously that he's "on the lookout" for another historical or period drama, and there could be another such project that would reunite him with King's Speech screenwriter (and fellow Oscar winner) David Seidler.
Seidler's next script is reportedly about Lady Hester Stanhope, an eccentric, mid-19th century explorer that Seidler described as "a female Lawrence of Arabia" to The Daily Mail (via The Playlist). King's Speech producer Gareth Unwin went into greater detail about the project, titled The Lady Who Went Too Far, last month in an interview with Geek Tyrant.
Drawing on The Star of the Morning a biography by Kirsten Ellis, the film follows amazing adventures on her travels through the Middle East and beyond where she becomes embroiled in a three way love affair with two French spies.
While neither of the previous reports have Hooper tied to the Seidler script, a September 2010 report from Screen Daily has Hooper potentially reuniting with Unwin and Seidler "if the elements are correct." However, The King's Speech distributor The Weinstein Company may tempt Hooper with a different project.
Deadline reports that Hooper is "getting serious about resuscitating" the long-developing adaptation of Deborah Moggach's novel, Tulip Fever. Set in 17th Century Amsterdam, the movie concerns an affair between a married woman and the artist hired to paint her portrait. Directors John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) and Peter Chelsom (Shall We Dance?) have both been attached to the project at various times over the past ten years.
So, clearly, Hooper has options, but after already waiting a year, he may take his time deciding.