Though he has novel adaptation Ready Player One waiting in the wings, Steven Spielberg already has his eye on a future film. And it's a project he's been developing for a couple of years now. The director plans to reunite with Bridge Of Spies' Mark Rylance for The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara.
And Rylance – who scored an Oscar for his Spies work and is providing the voice and performance capture for the title character in Spielberg's adaptation of Roald Dahl's The BFG – isn't the only collaborator the director is returning to. Mortara sees a reunion between Spielberg and his Munich/Lincoln scribe, Tony Kushner. The writer is adapting David Kertzer’s novel, which charts the true story of a seven-year-old Italian Jew thrust into controversy in 1858 when he was taken from his parents and raised as a Catholic by authorities of the Papacy. He ended up becoming a priest in a story that sees the Pope (Rylance will play Pope Pius IX) clashing with the forces of Italian democracy.
Deadline's report mentions that Spielberg plans to shoot this one early next year for release later in 2017. And it'll be another busy burst of work for him, assuming Ready Player One doesn't somehow vanish into Robopocalypse-style limbo: he's got that, Mortara and the next Indiana Jones movie all lined up. The BFG, meanwhile, arrives in the UK on July 22. Check out the latest trailer right here.