Ralph Fiennes, clearly craving a break from his snake-nosed antics in the Harry Potter series, is set to star in The Gifted for writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes (Mean Creek).
Based on a New Yorker article, the film tells the life story of controversial philanthropist Zell Kravinsky, who made millions in real estate and then gave it away. Sure, he kept a bit for the kids’ college fund, but basically he’s big with the giving. So big, in fact, that merely giving money wasn’t enough. After reading an article about the number of people waiting for kidney transplants, he decided that he had a spare one of those too, and sneaked out of the house one morning (his wife worried about the whole giving-body-parts-away thing) to donate it to a poor stranger.
The film is due to start shooting in New York in the spring – and after that, Fiennes is hoping to make his directorial debut with Snow Country in September, based on the novel by “Yukiguni" by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata, and adapted by Nicholas Rohl.
That’s the story of an affair between a wealthy sophisticate and a 17 year-old Inuit girl being raised in a convent. She knows their affair can’t last but still throws herself into it with (we’re guessing) tragic consequences. That’s due to shoot in September, with locations in Toronto, Winnipeg and (not a very exact description this) the Arctic.