Marion Cotillard has become that rarest of things, the heavily-accented superstar. While she'd cropped up in Hollywood fare like "Big Fish" and "A Good Year" before, her Oscar victory in 2008 for Edith Piaf biopic "La Vie En Rose" catapulted her onto the A-list, and since then she's mixed blockbuster fare like "Public Enemies," "Contagion" and "Inception" with smaller home-grown projects like "Little White Lies" and "The Last Flight," while somehow finding time to have her first child with partner Guillaume Canet a few months back.
Next year sees examples at both ends of the scale, with a part, still shrouded in mystery, in "The Dark Knight Rises" and a dark, gruelling role in Jacques Audiard's "Rust & Bone," but at Warner Bros., where she's become something of a favorite of late, are now courting her for a return to tentpole territory, as Vulture report that the studio have offered Cotillard the role of Morgana in the Round Table reboot "Arthur & Lancelot."
In legend, the character is a powerful sorceress, the half-sister of King Arthur, and generally seen as a villain (see Helen Mirren in "Excalibur"), although earlier takes on the tale have as a more benevolent figure. Given Cotillard's star quality, we imagine that this version, written and directed by "Wedding Crashers" helmer David Dobkin of all people, will be the former, but that's purely speculation at this point.
Should she sign on, Cotillard will join "Game of Thrones" star Kit Harington as Arthur and "The Killing" lead Joel Kinnaman as Lancelot, and while Gary Oldman was offered the role of Merlin, he has been dismissive of the project in recent interviews. But "should" is the key word as she's meant to shoot James Gray's "Low Life" in January, around the time that Dobkin's film will be underway, while she's also attached to partner Canet's English-language debut "Blood Ties" along with Mark Wahlberg and Zoe Saldana, so scheduling could well be a problem here. Word on Cotillard's involvement will presumably be revealed long before "Arthur & Lancelot" is released on March 15, 2013.
Written and directed by "Wedding Crashers" helmer David Dobkin, is it supposed to be a comedy? Marion Cotillard is just brilliant, she's my model. Her hometown made Little White Lies rocks. Besides, she and Gillaume Canet is a beautifully cute couple.
You're kidding, right? Heavily accented? Did you actually watch "Midnight in Paris"? Or "Public Enemies"? This woman has all but eradicated her accent, a la Rutger Hauer and Peter Stormare. And why is it a surprise that Hollywood should be attracted to a quality actress, no matter her nationality? Talk about a nonstory.
She is too good for this. She has true superstar potential, but she'll never reach it doing B-list movies and supporting roles. She needs to be headlining her own films, right now. The window of opportunity is so fleeting for actresses. She has to strike now. She needs her agent to find her a classy Rom-Com. It's a much discredited genre, but the only one where Hollywood is eager to let the woman take the lead, and build huge campaigns around her. Marion needs to be the true star of her own movies. Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock and just about every superstar actress ever, relied on Rom-Coms to launch them into the stratosphere. Once there, they expanded to other things, but it all begins with Rom-Coms. She can prove her solo box office power in this very lucrative genre, and use that to leverage her way into much better leading roles. Right now, she is stuck in fourth billing in her Hollywood movies. This is a shocking and unacceptable state of affairs. This film's poster would have Marion as a tiny head in the background and her name buried somewhere in tiny font. She deserves a poster that is nothing but her Giant Floating Head!!! Anything less is unacceptable.
Marion Cotillard is really gorgeous and very talented. I hope she does not appear in this as it seems that she is gradually being typecast if a rumour about her character in one of her forthcoming films turns out to be correct.
In addition, it would have been good to at least mention Eva Green's excellent performance in the recent television series, 'Camelot' as the same character they want Marion Cotillard to play.