French writer/director Jacques Audiard has leapt onto the world stage in a big way in the past few years with the double whammy of “The Beat That My Heart Skipped” and the Oscar-contending gangster epic “A Prophet.” He’s wasting no time in cashing in those chips and has a couple of potential projects on the horizon.
First up is the latest from Louis Mellis, co-writer of Jonathan Glazer’s modern classic “Sexy Beast.” For a long time we didn’t hear anything from Mellis and his writing partner David Scinto. They finally returned a few weeks back with the vastly inferior “44 Inch Chest,” and it turns out that, over the intervening years, the duo had fallen out, and were no longer working together. Scinto doesn’t even have an agent now, but Mellis is apparently working with Jacques Audiard, and has now signed on to a new project for newcomers Smuggler Films.
“The Princess’ Gangster” will tell the story of John Bindon, a Londoner who fell into crime as a teenager, serving time in Borstal for possessing ammunition. On his release, he was spotted by Ken Loach, and cast in “Poor Cow,” starting a career of tough guy roles in films such as “Performance,” “Quadrophenia” and “Get Carter.” Bindon was linked romantically to the likes of Christine Keeler and Angela Barnett (who later married David Bowie), as well as, most notably, Princess Margaret (the late younger sister of the current Queen), although the latter denied that any relationship took place .
He went on to briefly run security for Bowie and for Led Zeppelin, but never lost touch with his criminal roots, and was tried for murder after a fight with gangster John Darke. He was later acquitted, partly due to the appearance of Bob Hoskins as a character witness. It’s certainly a colorful life, and could make a fun movie, although the title suggests that the possible royal romance, which seems to be a minor footnote in Bindon’s story, might be the central theme. Still, considering Mellis’ previous form, it might be worth it just to hear Princess Margaret use the c-word every 30 seconds.
But Audiard isn’t quite ready to leave the world he constructed in “A Prophet” behind. In an interview with LittleWhiteLies, Jacques Audiard has teased the possibility of a sequel to his critically acclaimed crime saga.
Mind you, there are slight spoilers involved in the following quote so read on at your own risk.
When asked about the film’s merits as a political thriller, Audiard revealed that “we were asking ourselves this question, rather lightly, of what would be El Djebena’s future in ‘A Prophet 2.’ And with the profile he has, I imagine things, and his relationship with the whole kind of gangster society is very ambiguous. And I totally can imagine him as a local elected member of office. First of all!”
Interesting, but as he says, it’s only ‘light’ discussions. We liked but didn’t love the film but the prospect of a sequel to the slow-burning epic does fascinate us. -additional reporting Simon Dang
Well, here in France, Jacques Audiard says in every interviews that he's working on an adaptation (in one feature film) of several short stories from the short story collection "Rust and Bone" by Craig Davidson. He's working on it with his co-writer from "A prophet", Thomas Bidegain.