Paul Verhoeven's ‘Young Sinner' Still Looking for Financing [Updated]

UPDATE: I’m hearing Verhoeven is still looking for financing on this one. A sad state of affairs that one of the best living filmmakers can’t manage to find the necessary funding to make a new film. It surely doesn’t help that he wants to shoot this one in the U.S.

Don’t be surprised if Verhoeven outright shelves “Young Sinner” and moves on to direct “Sans Compter” in France instead. He already has the money secured to shoot that one.

EARLIER: Of all the upcoming projects I’ve kept an eye on, one of the most anticipated has to be Paul Verhoeven’s “Young Sinner” which would be the Dutch filmmaker’s first American film in 25 years and would reteam him with “RoboCop” screenwriter Edward Neumeier.

Verhoeven has described “Young Sinner” as an “erotic thriller set in Washington, DC” and once compared it to his 2006 thriller “Black Book,” but “more explosive, and more open-minded to a big audience,” adding that the lead character was an Evangelical woman.

I’ve been tracking this one for a while and have received a fair share of emails about it. What I will say is that, sadly, Verhoeven is still looking for someone to finance the film.

These last few years, Verhoeven, 86, has been supported by French money and made two well-received films in that country, “Elle” and “Benedetta.” However, “Young Sinner” is much more expensive that those films and requires someone who will take the risk and fund this ambitious endeavor.

Last time Verhoeven spoke about this project was earlier this year in an interview with Metrograph’s Eric Kohn. The filmmaker was “preparing” to shoot the political thriller, which would mark his first U.S. film since 2000’s “Hollow Man.” Verhoeven stated that it could be ready to enter production as early as this year, if he could find the financing for it.

I’m working with Ed Neumeier, who wrote RoboCop. You could say it’s a political thriller, if you want, situated in Washington. The last couple of years I’ve been working in France because I couldn’t find something interesting here at that time. But Ed came up with a really interesting proposal. For two years we have been working on the screenplay. It should be done in two months and then we can find out if someone can finance it.

Verhoeven adds that Neumeier’s satirical flair matches his own style. “If you see us working basically, it’s often just laughing. We laugh at our own satire that we bring in, not because we want to bring it in — it comes from our conversation. It just pops up,” he says.

This is the “Young Sinner” synopsis that was sent over to me last summer, and it does sound very Verhoeven-esque:

Young Sinner is a political thriller set in Washington, D.C. The heroine, a young staffer who works for a powerful Senator, is drawn into a web of international intrigue and danger, and of course there is also a little sex.

Verhoeven has described “Young Sinner” as “a more innovative version of movies like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct” and that he “would not be adding all kinds of digital elements. As little as possible.” He added that he’s been consulting with former intelligence officer, Ron Marks, who is informing the filmmaker about Capitol Hill and the spy business.