My take on Andrew Dominik directing any movie: as long as it gets him working. Dominik has two films under his belt – one the very good Chopper and the other the heartbreakingly brilliant The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – and it’s taken him a decade to amass just those credits. Now he’s attached to direct Blonde, one of two competing Marilyn Monroe films, this one based on Joyce Carol Oates’ fictional memoir of the same name.
Blonde tells the Monroe story from Norma Jean’s POV, playing with history to get at the drama and meaning behind the story of the most famous and lusted after blonde in history. To me this is an out of left field choice for Dominik, but as I said: as long as it gets him working. And it’s always interesting to see filmmakers expand what you expect from them.
The film, which is budgeted at a very modest 20 million, shoots next year. There’s a poster floating around Cannes with an image of Naomi Watts, who will be starring, as Marilyn. At this resolution I can’t tell if it’s Watts in costume or a Photoshop, but I think it gets across the initial concept.
From Allocine, via Coming Soon