Upcoming projects

Index

Select a project to jump to it.

• Cancer Vixen
  
• Nottingham
• As Bees in Honey Drown
  
• The Darling
  
• A Streetcar Named Desire
• War of the Roses
• Big and little

Movies

Cancer Vixen
Status: Unknown

Cate Blanchett is attached to star in "Cancer Vixen: A True Story," based on an upcoming memoir of the same name by Marisa Acocella Marchetto, a cartoonist fashionista for Glamour and the New Yorker.

Marchetto's autobiography, which has been generating buzz ahead of its release by Knopf on Tuesday, describes how she fell in love with a celebrity restaurateur and was planning their wedding when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and realized that she had let her health insurance lapse. Her friends - stylists, gossip columnists, designers - rallied around her as she wore killer shoes to chemo sessions and strove to get married on time.

Blanchett and her husband, Andrew Upton, are in talks to serve as producers of the Working Title Films project.

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Nottingham
Status: Confirmed

Cate has signed up for the part of Maid Marian in 'Nottingham', a new take on Robin Hood, to be directed by Ridley Scott.

Her future co-star Mark Strong, who has been cast as Sir Guy of Gisbourne, mentioned on the red carpet of the London Film Critics' Circle Awards, "I think Cate Blanchett is set to take the Maid Marian part. She is a wonderful actress and it would make it a much classier film if she was in it." Cate has committed to the role of Maid Marian after Sienna Miller recently lost the part, as she apparently was deemed to youthful for the part.

Aside from Strong, Russel Crowe is a fix for the roles of Robin Hood and the Sherrif of Nottingham. Rumored co-stars include William Hurt and Vanessa Redgrave. The film will be shot at a $130 million budget, and Scott will be aiming for a PG-13 rating.

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The Darling / American Darling
Status: Rumored

Another rumor, and this time it's that Cate is set to portray the title role in "The Darling", a movie directed by Martin Scorsese, after the book by the same title by Russell Banks.

The book is Hannah Musgrave's story, told emotionally and convincingly years later by Hannah herself. A political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah has fled America to West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends and colleagues of Charles Taylor, the notorious warlord and now ex-president of Liberia.

When Taylor leaves for the United States in an effort to escape embezzlement charges, he's immediately placed in prison. Hannah's encounter with Taylor in American ultimately triggers a series of events whose momentum catches Hannah's family in its grips and forces her to make a heartrending choice.

Set in Liberia and the United States from 1975 through 1991, The Darling is a political/historical thriller -- reminiscent of Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad -- that explodes the genre, raising serious philosophical questions about terrorism, political violence, and the clash of races and cultures.

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As Bees in Honey Drown
Status: Rumored

It's rumored that Cate will star 'As Bees in Honey Drown'.

As Bees in Honey Drown is a comedy about the pitfalls of the unquenchable hunger for fame. Eager almost-famous painters, singers, musicians, business managers, and, of course, authors—the occupation of the protagonist of this play—are displayed as easily trapped victims of con artists who promise big, but empty, dreams.

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Theatre

War of the Roses
Status: Currently playing

Adapted By Tom Wright and Benedict Andrews

As the culmination of their three years together, Sydney Theatre Company's renowned resident ensemble, the STC Actors Company, are joined by Cate Blanchett and Robert Menzies to present an audacious epic of language and history - The War of the Roses.

The War of the Roses spans eight of Shakespeare's History plays, from the elegance and melancholy of Richard II through to the barbarity and catastrophe of Richard III, via some of Shakespeare's most startling and inspired creations. The bittersweet underworld of Falstaff's nights, the boy-failure who becomes a war hero in Henry V, the nightmare world of a child-king in Henry VI, the incisive language of Queen Margaret, all refracted by a creative team acclaimed for their vivid re-imaginings.

Condensed to four distinct acts, performed in two parts, this landmark production examines what it means to rule, to enact war, to take power and to lose power. It is the story of the failure of a civilisation and its replacement with a new world order.

Renowned for his distinctly bold interpretations of classic texts, The War of the Roses marks internationally-lauded director Benedict Andrews' second collaboration with the STC Actors Company, following their award-winning production of Patrick White's The Season at Sarsaparilla in 2007.

Useful links:
The STC's page on War of the Roses
War of the Roses images gallery

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A Streetcar Named Desire
Status: Confirmed

Cate is set to be directed by Liv Ullmann, a film director and actor best known for her collaborations with Ingmar Bergman, in a theatrical rendition of 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. Cate will perform the part of heroine Blanche DuBois. The production will be a part of Andrew and Cate's 2009 program for the Sydney Theatre Company. They signed on as its artistic directors last year.

Ullmann has been in Sydney this week making preparations with the company's co-directors, Andrew Upton and Blanchett. "It is an honour to work with the STC," Ullmann said. "[Williams] holds the audience through the revelation of quiet and ordinary truths and I'm excited by the prospect of discovering these with … inspiring artists."

Although the company's 2009 program will not be announced until later this year, A Streetcar Named Desire is sure to be a selling point. "Having an artist of Liv Ullmann's exacting vision at the helm of STC's production of one of the greatest plays of the 20th century will be wonderful," Blanchett said.

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Big and little
Status: Rumored

Cate's rumored to be hitting the stage in Vienna, performing in Botho Strauss' "Groß und Klein" (Big and little).

Written by Botho Strauß, 'Big and little' is a drama about a woman, Lotte, and her relationships with a wide range of characters in Saarbruecken. Lotte interacts with liberal artists and a conservative elite, and along the way, the sorrows and joys of life are brought forward.

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