One of the handful of British talents well known and loved on beyond our shores, and in my opinion one of the finest actors working at the moment, Ewan McGregor is now set to join Oscar-nominated writer-director Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s acclaimed novel, The Corrections, Deadline report.
The adaptation has been set up at HBO, with the first episode already scripted by both Franzen and Baumbach, and the latter is set to direct the pilot, which is brilliant news. McGregor is joining Chris Cooper (American Beauty, The Town) and Dianne Wiest (Edward Scissorhands) in what is shaping up to be a fantastic cast.
Published back in 2001, Franzen’s original novel,
“revolves around the troubles of a Midwestern couple (Cooper and Wiest), and their three adult children as they trace their lives from the mid-20th century to “one last Christmas” together near the turn of the millennium. McGregor will play Chip, the middle child, a Marxist academic who lost his tenure-track position over an affair with a student and now works for a Lithuanian crime boss defrauding American investors.”
Baumbach and Franzen are also serving as producers alongside Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin, whose credits include The Social Network, Moneyball, and No Country For Old Men (the last of which he won his Oscar for), and who’s worked with Baumbach several times in the past, including on his most recent films, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Greenberg.
Though I’ve not yet read Franzen’s novel, I have coincidentally enough just had it come through the post after ordering it a week ago, and am now looking forward to reading it even more. It’s meant to be a brilliant novel, and it’s shaping up to be a brilliant adaptation by the sounds of it.
McGregor will next be seen in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, due out on 20th January next year, followed by Salmon Fishing in the Yemen on 9th March, both very much anticipated. With The Corrections expected to air on HBO in 2013, the next two years are looking pretty brilliant for the actor.
