Kevin Macdonald Lining Up Submarine B-Movie 'Black Sea'; Still Looking For Male Lead For 'How I Live Now' With Saoirse Ronan

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by Kevin Jagernauth
February 14, 2012 4:57 PM
5 Comments

Pop quiz: when was the last great movie set on a submarine? You had to think about that one for a little bit didn't you? Well, at any rate, it's certainly been a while since a filmmaker has gone underwater into the cluttered environment of a submarine, but Kevin Macdonald hopes to do just that. The filmmaker, currently in Berlin where "Marley" is unspooling to festival audiences, is lining up a new film that he hopes will be strictly some solid genre flair.

Described as being in the vein of "Treasure Of The Sierra Madre," Screen Daily reports Macdonald will get submerged in "Black Sea." No plot details yet, but the filmmaker has modest aspirations. "Hopefully, it will be one of those hard, intelligent B-movies they used to make - dark, little vicious B-movies,” he said.

Meanwhile, he continues to move ahead to "How I Live Now," a future set drama that centers on Daisy, a New Yorker staying with English cousins when World War III breaks out. As the country becomes occupied, she falls for her cousin, Edmond, and has to protect her younger cousin Piper from the invading troops. The flim landed Saoirse Ronan in the lead role late last year, and as the flim continues to move forward -- it is shaping up to be Macdonald's next film -- the hunt is on for a co-star for Ronan. “We are having a lot of difficulty finding a boy,” Macdonald explained. “It was predicated on being a cast of unknowns but Saoirse came and read and was so fantastic…we cast her, which means we have someone who is a name and who is great.”

And finally, also on the director's busy plate is a project we didn't know about, a Euro TV series "Haut Et Cour," set in Yugoslavia and told from the perspective of jewel thieves. Macdonald is in the midst of research and is set to chat to members of the infamous gang the Pink Panther.

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More: Kevin Macdonald, How I Live Now, Black Sea

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Eric | February 14, 2012 11:16 PMReply

Last great submarine movie - U571
James | February 14, 2012 8:11 PMReply

Also, it's not about Daisy protecting Piper from invading troops. The enemy troops are almost never seen. The novel is about the kids living an isolated, bucolic existence miles from the war, until it suddenly tears them apart. It then follows Daisy and Piper trekking cross-country to reunite with the boys. I just read the novel. It's a simple and tragic tale - very much the tone of "Never Let Me Go" but with children. Should make an amazingly spare, quiet, moving film.
James | February 15, 2012 1:35 PM

The connection, to me, is that that they're both quietly tragic tales set in a strange alternate present/near future, in which young people in an isolated part of Britain find themselves trapped in a seemingly idyllic setting as something profoundly horrible creeps upon them.
jingmei | February 14, 2012 9:47 PM

Never Let Me Go is a kinda half sci-fi epic tragedy related with kids, desperately beautifully sad. Don't know the connection with this one, maybe about lives and humanities.
James | February 14, 2012 8:04 PMReply

Typo in the body of the article - it's "How I Live Now" not "How I LOVE Now".