A little less than a year ago, news arrived that Amelie / Micmacs filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet was ready to jump into his next job, and, even more excitingly, back to English for his first film since that one we don’t really talk about. You know, the one set in the Alien universe… But all eyes are now on The Young And Prodigious Spivet, which has just added Helena Bonham Carter and Kathy Bates to its cast.

Jeunet adapted the script from Rief Larson’s novel The Selected Works Of TS Spivet, working with regular collaborator Guillaume Laurent.

Spivet revolves around the titular youngster (Kyle Catlett), a boy boasting extraordinary navigation and other skills. He leaves his father (Callum Keith Rennie) and the rest of his family behind in Montana to head out on a cross-country quest to the Smithsonian in Washington to receive a prize.

While Jeunet has said that this will be more realistic than his other movies, it will still be full of his trademark visual delights and, for the first time, sees him taking a stab at 3D. But don’t worry about him sacrificing his style for shonky, post-converted dimensionality: he’s hiring Hugo stereographer Demetri Portelli to help with that aspect. And he’ll reunite with several of his usual behind-the-scenes team. They’re all set to start filming next month in Canada.