For a while now, David Cronenberg has been trying to decide which of the two projects he’s currently juggling will be shoved into production. While comic Holly-thriller Maps To The Stars appeared to be gaining momentum by going into pre-production, London-based thriller Eastern Promises has cantered up from behind like a cinematic Seabiscuit with word that Viggo Mortensen is attached to star.
Still, there’s no word on a shooting date, but with his A History On Violence star on board, it’ll certainly make Cronenberg consider tackling the Steve Knight-penned thriller first. Set in London, the film focuses on a nurse investigating the identity of a Russian girl who dies in childbirth. But as she starts digging around, she discovers that the woman was a prostitute caught up in a dangerous sex trafficking ring. No surprise that Knight also wrote Dirty Pretty Things, which also took a hard look at the seamy underbelly of our capital.
Mortensen has signed up to play a man with ties to the Russian mafia - Cronenberg certainly seems to bring out the gangster in the man formerly known as Aragorn…
