Sofia Coppola has canned a mysterious project involving Kirsten Dunst, believing it “felt too sad”.
Coppola and Dunst have worked together on three past projects, namely The Virgin Suicides (1999), Marie Antoinette (2006) and The Beguiled (2017). Though production was supposed to begin on their fourth film together this year, the director has now confirmed in a new interview that it is being scrapped.
“It’s confusing in these dark times,” she told Elle. I want to offer some hope and beauty in the world, but then you also don’t want to do something shallow, because it feels like a time for deep things.”
Details of the project were thin on the ground, specifically relating to title, plot, studio and producers, but Dunst had previously said it related to a real-life historical figure.
When asked whether she would be playing a real-life person, Dunst replied: “Yes, but not someone who I’d consider famous.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Coppola added that she wasn’t working on anything at present to follow up 2023 Priscilla Presley biopic Priscilla and a new documentary about Marc Jacobs, Marc by Sofia.
in 2023, she said that her forthcoming Apple TV+ adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel The Custom Of The Country has been axed because it was about an “unlikeable woman”.
According to an interview with The New York Times, the director said that she was planning to develop the project as a five-hour limited series but the streaming service didn’t like its main character.
“The idea of an unlikable woman wasn’t their thing,” Coppola said. “But that’s what I’m saying about who’s in charge.”
The novel is still receiving an adaptation, albeit as a film and without Coppola at the helm, with Sydney Sweeney at the helm.