Last summer, Damien Chazelle was set to shoot an Evel Knievel biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but the project fell apart after DiCaprio exited. Chazelle then immediately moved on to another project.
Word is now that Cillian Murphy, Daniel Craig, Michelle Williams, and Mia Threapleton have started production on that very project: Chazelle’s next film, an untitled prison-set drama.
Most of the shooting will take place in the basement of a former tobacco-processing factory in western Athens, which has been transformed into prison cells for this production, before briefly moving to the Greater Athens region and the northwestern island of Corfu.
This mid-budget “prison film” is set up at Paramount. Lol Crawley (“The Brutalist”) is serving as cinematographer, while Chazelle’s longtime collaborator Justin Hurwitz will compose the score. Shooting is expected to continue until June.
Speaking of prison, after his last film, “Babylon,” underperformed commercially and critically, many believed Chazelle had gone to director’s jail, but he’s too talented a filmmaker to go dormant. Ever since 2015’s “Whiplash,” Chazelle has become one of the most exciting and unpredictable American filmmakers — someone who refuses to repeat himself and continues to chase ambitious, wildly different visions.
This will mark Chazelle’s sixth feature; his previous works include “Whiplash,” “La La Land,” “First Man,” and “Babylon,” which hit theaters in 2022.