Heath Ledger is getting his future ducks in a row; just the other day it was reported that he, along with Sean Penn, was in talks for the next Terence Malick film (Tree of Life) and now word comes that he’s going to star in the next Terry Gilliam movie.
Gilliam, coming off the gutpunch of the atrocious Tideland, is going to start filming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus this December in London. The movie, co-written by Gilliam and Charles McKeown (who previously wrote for Gilliam on Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), is about an entertainer – the titular doctor – "who has the gift of guiding the imaginations of others. With his traveling theater troupe, Parnassus offers audience members the chance to transcend reality by passing through a magical mirror."
Christopher Plummer will be playing Parnassus. There’s not yet been an announcement as to what role Ledger might play in the film. This would mark the big reunion between Ledger and Gilliam – they worked together on The Brothers Grimm, a truly awful movie (although compared to Tideland it’s like seeing the lost Orson Welles cut of The Magnificent Ambersons), but one where Ledger excelled. Hopefully he’ll be bringing just as much of his A-game to this one.