Claire Denis, a formidable filmmaker that can easily stand with any of the greats from the last 30 years, has shown remarkable resilience in her career to never conform to the norm. She’s an everlasting troubadour, walking the high-wire of creative risk-taking with each movie she makes. I spoke to her last year about “High Life,” starring Robert Pattinson, her first English-language film and a twisted, kinky version of a deep space opera.
Screen Daily is reporting that Denis’s next film, a Nicaragua-set romantic thriller titled “Stars At Noon”, will star Robert Pattinson and Margaret Qualley, and is due to shoot in April 2021. It looks as though this is an adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novel of the same name. Wikipedia has the plot going like this:
“The novel follows an unnamed American woman, supposedly a journalist, living in Managua, Nicaragua in 1984, during Sandinista rule. She originally traveled to Nicaragua as an observer for an anti-war group. She is disgusted with the corruption of both the Sandinistas and "the stupid CIA." She hustles as a prostitute at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Managua, hoping to leave Nicaragua one day. At the hotel, she eventually meets an unnamed English oil businessman whom she falls in love with. When the Englishman has falling out with Costa Ricans, the two flee together toward border. An American who is most likely a CIA agent tracks them and pressures her to sell out the Englishman.”
Denis is notable for having directed arthouse classics such as “Chocolat,” “Beau Travail” and “35 Shots of Rum.”
Yes, ‘Doomsday’ was shot without a finalized script. It was being written as production rolled on. The screenplay was still under development on set, with daily rewrites and updates in progress.