Alicia Vikander & More Join Cate Blanchett In Ensemble Comedy ‘Rumours’ As Guy Maddin Pic Lands At Bleecker Street

EXCLUSIVE: Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) has been set to star opposite Cate Blanchett in Rumours, a comedy from writer-directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson (The Green Fog), which Bleecker Street has snapped up for release in U.S. theaters this year.

The film follows the seven leaders of the world’s wealthiest liberal democracies at the annual G7 summit after they become lost in the woods and face increasing peril while attempting to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis.

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Also featuring in a top role in the pic, which recently wrapped production in Hungary, is Genie Award winner Roy Dupuis (Shake Hands with the Devil). Additional cast includes Charles Dance (Game of Thrones), Denis Ménochet (Inglourious Basterds), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Knock at the Cabin), Rolando Ravello (Perfect Strangers), Takehiro Hira (Gran Turismo), and Zlatko Burić (Triangle of Sadness).

Hailing from Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen’s Square Peg, the production company behind such acclaimed films as Hereditary and Dream Scenario, the project is their second with Bleecker Street, on the heels of the Zellner Brothers’ recently announced Sasquatch Sunset, starring Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg, which is set to world premiere at this month’s Sundance Film Festival.

Rumours is a Canadian-German co-production, with financing from Telefilm Canada and Manitoba Film & Music, Orogen Entertainment Ltd. and Minnow Productions, in association with ZDF/ARTE. Producers are Liz Jarvis for Buffalo Gal Pictures, Philipp Kreuzer for Maze Pictures, and Knudsen for Square Peg. Exec producers include Andrew Karpen and Kent Sanderson for Bleecker Street, Aster for Square Peg, Jörg Schulze for Maze Pictures, and Phyllis Laing for Buffalo Gal Pictures. Executive producers for Orogen Entertainment are Blair Ward, Anders Erden, Lauren Case and Eric Harbert. Exec producers also include Gillian Hormel, Mary Aloe and Stefan Kapelari. Laokoon Film Group’s Judit Stalter is co-producer along with exec producers Gábor Sipos and Gábor Rajna. Elevation Pictures is distributing in Canada, and Plaion Pictures in Germany. Protagonist Pictures is handling international sales.

An Oscar winner best known for films like The Danish Girl and Ex Machina, Vikander has most recently been seen starring as Katherine Parr, the last of King Henry VIII’s wives, in Karim Aïnouz’s drama Firebrand, which world premiered last year at Cannes. In the last few years, she’s also been seen in Olivier Assayas’ Max comedy Irma Vep, as well as A24’s The Green Knight, the acclaimed Justin Chon drama Blue Bayou, Julie Taymor’s The Glorias, and more. She is represented by UTA.

Blanchett is repped by CAA; Dupuis by Premier Role; Dance by Tavistock Wood Management; Ménochet by Agence Adequat and United Agents; Amuka-Bird by Accelerate, Greene Talent, Link Entertainment and Felker Toczek Suddleson; Burić by Art Management; and Maddin by Loeb & Loeb. Kent Sanderson and Avy Eschenasy negotiated the acquisition deal for Bleecker Street, with CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers.

Bleecker Street recently acquired U.S. rights to James Hawes’ One Life, starring Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins, and the Tony Goldwyn-directed Ezra, both of which world premiered at TIFF. The company also has taken U.S. on British comedy Fackham Hall, starring Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and more, and UK rights to Hayao Miyazaki’s latest acclaimed feature, The Boy and the Heron, alongside Elysian Film Group and Anonymous Content. Most recently releasing Meg Ryan’s rom-com What Happens Later and Waitress: The Musical, Bleecker’s upcoming slate includes a pair of thrillers: Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s space station-set I.S.S., which opens January 19, and Stone Age pic Out of Darkness, which is out February 9.

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