Christoph Waltz Joins Robert Pattinson & Reese Witherspoon In Depression-Era Set ‘Water For Elephants’

Snagging a role that Sean Penn was originally circling, Christoph Waltz has signed on to “Water For Elephants,” a depression-set romance starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon.

The concept is admittedly an off-the-beaten path story. Based on the best-selling novel by Sara Gruen and adapted to the big screen by Richard LaGravenese (“The Ref,” “The Fisher King,” “Living Out Loud”) the story is about a romance that develops between a veterinarian and star of a traveling circus. Pattinson would play the vet, Witherspoon the star and Waltz the star’s husband an “unbalanced, sadistic circus boss who beats both his wife and the animals.” So someone like a much more outwardly psychotic version of Hans Landa we’re guessing. Here’s the Amazon synopsis of the book:

With its spotlight on elephants, Gruen’s romantic page-turner hinges on the human-animal bonds that drove her debut and its sequel (Riding Lessons and Flying Changes)—but without the mass appeal that horses hold. The novel, told in flashback by nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, recounts the wild and wonderful period he spent with the Benzini Brothers’ Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he joined during the Great Depression. When 23-year-old Jankowski learns that his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him penniless, he drops out of Cornell veterinary school and parlays his expertise with animals into a job with the circus, where he cares for a menagerie of exotic creatures[…] He also falls in love with Marlena, one of the show’s star performers — a romance complicated by Marlena’s husband, the unbalanced, sadistic circus boss who beats both his wife and the animals Jankowski cares for. Despite her often clichéd prose and the predictability of the story’s ending, Gruen skillfully humanizes the midgets, drunks, rubes and freaks who populate her book.

While we still have reservations about seeing Pattinson and Witherspoon in period garb, and directed by Francis Lawrence (“I Am Legend,” “Constantine”) no less, our interest in the film has spiked a bit with Waltz’s involvement.

No word yet on when this will get in front of cameras, but with more Twilight sequels being eyed to shoot in the fall, we’re guessing Fox 2000 will want this shooting before then, most likely this summer.