If there’s one rule destined to piss off the lonely it’s this: It’s not what you know- it’s who you know. Ah, Cronyism– The universal truth. And that’s a good thing for Charlize Theron because without knowing herself, she may never have been hired to star in The Burning Plain, the upcoming film she’s Executive Producing with Mark "What the hell am I paying you guys for!?" Cuban.
The cronyism doesn’t stop there — the project is bursting with it. Guillermo Arriaga, fresh off his post-Babel creative breakup with long-time collaborator Alejandro Gonzales, has written The Burning Plain for a very special director. Himself. Now we’ll see who the creative powerhouse was… won’t we Alejandro!?
In the words of Arriaga himself, The Burning Plain follows "very intense love stories …that take place in different places and times, with characters trying to find the healing powers of love, forgiveness and redemption." Kind of like The Fountain…? Probably not. More like his previous intertwined storytelling in 21 Grams or Babel. One of the most tender scenes I’ve seen in a while was Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett’s finding real love again over a bed pan, a wretched case of body odor and a festering bullet wound. If Arriaga can carry the same kind of subtley powerful emotion into this upcoming work, I look forward to it.
Theron will begin thespianizing as a daughter trying to reconcile with her parents in The Burning Plain as soon as her work in the upcoming In the Valley of Elah is completed. Resultantly, there’s no distribution timetable yet. Unless of course the Distribution Timetable happens to know itself.