Nicole Kidman Joins Fiennes for Nazi Drama
Nicole Kidman, star of the weekend box office bomb “The Invasion,” will join forces with Ralph Fiennes on a Nazi drama from the filmmaker who directed her to an Academy Award for “The Hours.”
“The Reader,” a long-gestating project based on Bernhard Schlink’s international best-seller, will be directed by Stephen Daldry. The Weinstein Co. project is scheduled to begin next month in Germany.
The story is set in postwar Germany and centers on Michael Berg, who is 15 years old when he begins a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. He never learns much about her, and when she disappears one day, he expects never to see her again. But to his horror, he discovers that she is a defendant in a Nazi war crimes trial, and it soon becomes clear that she is guilty of an unspeakable crime.
David Hare, who adapted the Oscar-nominated screenplay for “The Hours,” wrote “The Reader.”
Kidman is currently in theaters with the sci-fi thriller “The Invasion,” which earned an estimated $6.0 million during its first weekend. She next stars in “Margot at the Wedding,” “The Golden Compass” and “Australia.”
Fiennes is also in theaters, playing Lord Voldemort in “Harry Potter and the Order of
the Phoenix.”
