Jean-Marc Vallée is an amazing French-Canadian director who just hasn’t gotten the respect or due in this country as some of his countrymates, making one daring film after the next with very few of them getting more than nominal distribution in the United States.
There were hopes that his 2009 costume drama The Young Victoria, starring Emily Blunt, might make an impact but it wasn’t to be, but something that may change his status here is his direction of The Dallas Buyers Club, starring Matthew McConaughey in what some are already thinking might get Mr. McConaughey into awards talk next year… and that’s on top of his performance in Jeff Nichols’ Mud, currently in theaters.
But anyway, let’s get back to Vallée and his next project, because he’s going to team with production company Mr. Mudd to make a movie called Demolition, which doesn’t involve wrecking balls or cars smashing into each other, but instead “centers around a young investment banker struggling to understand his emotional disconnect after the tragic death of his wife.” This leads to him tearing apart in his life to find out where he went wrong only to be rescued in a chance encounter. (Whatever you think of that concept, it sounds like the perfect material for Vallée to direct going by his previous films.)
Demolition is based on a Black List screenplay by Bryan Sipe and it’s already gotten the interest of illustrious producers like Mr. Mudd’s Russell Smith, Lianne Halfon and John Malkovich, as well as Canada’s own Jason Reitman and Helen Estabrook as executive producers along with Vallées producing partner and manager Nathan Ross. Mr. Mudd previously produced Reitman’s mega-hit Juno and his upcoming movie Labor Day.
Plans are to start shooting this fall.
Vallée is quoted in the press release that Deadline got before everyone else as saying, Demolition is such a powerful and touching story, written with a strong and sincere desire to try to understand the human psyche, what makes us so unique, so special, what makes us love. This is a script of a rare quality, of a beautiful humanity.
(Photo source: Dominic Chan/ WENN.com)