Look at MTV bringing the info today. They’ve got Pierce Brosnan talking up one of his next roles, in Roman Polanski’s previously announced The Ghost. Based upon Robert Harris’ novel (with whom Polanski is co-writing) the film is a political thriller about a ghostwriter working on the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister.(This picture replaces the abandoned Pompeii as the director’s next.)

Brosnan will play the P.M. (a great move, although cast close to type in the post-Blair world) but Polanski is living dangerously by casting Nicolas Cage as the ghostwriter. If anyone can direct Cage out of his decade-long slump, it’s Polanski…or, at least, the Polanski of thirty years ago. But since a big chuck of the story takes place in an isolated house during winter, it’s certainly possible that The Ghost will tap those feelings of paranoia that Polanski was once so masterful at manipulating. Or maybe he’ll just shoot Cage’s hairline for ninety minutes.

UPDATE: Variety has chimed in (and, of course, those twats didn’t credit MTV with the info) but they’ve added a couple details. Tilda Swinton is also in the cast. She’ll “play the wife of the former prime minister (Brosnan). Her marriage is crumbling, and she falls for the writer.” Additionally, Peter Bart’s rag notes that production begins in September in Europe.