Neil Jordan to direct new vampire movie featuring female leads
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Oscar-winning filmmaker Neil Jordan is reuniting with producer Stephen Woolley to make Byzantium, a female vampire movie with Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton as the lead bloodsuckers.
The original script is penned by Moira Buffini and details the story of a mother vampire who turns her own daughter into a vampire and the pair form a lethal partnership.
The $11 million movie is set to shoot in October.
Jordan and Woolley have made several movies dating back to 1984's The Company of Wolves, based on Angela Carter's novel.
Woolley produced Jordan's Oscar-winning The Crying Game. They last worked together on Breakfast on Pluto in 2005.
"I love the horror genre and we've been working on this for years. I sent it to Neil and he liked the script," Woolley said." We'd both recently revisited Angela Carter's book and it was just chance that when I called, we were thinking along the same lines."
The original script is based on a youth theater play by Buffini but has been taken to a slightly more adult, darker level, Woolley said.
Woolley is gearing up to shoot the Mike Newell-directed adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, whose cast includes Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Jeremy Irvine. It is backed by BBC Films and the British Film Institute.
