Her previous film was oddball Ryan Reynolds murder comedy The Voices, so we perhaps should not be all that surprised that director Marjane Satrapi has another quirky tale in her sights. She has the likes of Uma Thurman, Alexandra Daddario and Voices' Gemma Arterton all lining up to star in The Extraordinary Journey Of The Fakir.
The Persepolis and Chicken With Plums filmmaker is adapting Romain Puértolas’ bestselling debut novel The Extraordinary Journey Of The Fakir Who Got Trapped In An Ikea Wardrobe (we can see why she's shortening the name). It's the story of a charming, story-spinning con man who travels to Paris from New Delhi, falls in love with a woman and is accidentally deported, along with a group of refugees, to a distant corner of Europe. The plot would appear to have some crucial topicality given the current refugee crisis in Europe. “It’s a story about love, magic and adventure and it takes place across three continents," Satrapi tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I’m drawn to fantasy stories and I love creating worlds that don’t exist, imagining things in bigger and more beautiful ways,”
Thurman, Daddario and Arterton will be joined in the film by Barkhad Abdi, Laurent Lafitte, Bollywood star Dhanush, Abel Jari and Seema Biswas. The script comes via Luc Bossi, Jon Goldman and Puértolas himself.