
Maleficent star Elle Fanning has been cast as Frankenstein author Mary Shelley in the romantic period drama A Storm in the Stars, according to THR.
The 16-year-old actress will play a 17-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft in the film, which centers on the controversial and passionate love affair the young writer had with the 19th century radical English poet Percy Shelley, to whom she later married.
A Storm in the Stars, which is still securing financing and is looking to start filming in 2015, is written by Emma Jensen and directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour (Wadjda), who is the first female director to come out of Saudi Arabia.
Amy Baer will producing the film via her Gidden Media banner with Joannie Burstein and Rebecca Miller executive producing. It appears that the indie drama might be what Fanning needs to transition from her child actress status, such as in features Maleficent and Super 8, into leading lady roles. THR quotes Baer as saying about Fanning:
“Elle is amazingly smart and talented and very much relates to Mary as a young woman,” said Baer. “She is going to do something extraordinary in this role that will transition her from a compelling young adult to a formidable leading lady.”
While general audiences know Mary Shelley thanks to her classic novel Frankenstein and all its horror movie offshoots, her husband Percy, though a major figure in 19th century poetry and philosophy, is lesser known. But, the poet was brought back into popular awareness last year after AMC released a trailer for the final season of Breaking Bad that had its main character, Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston), reciting Shelley’s Ozymandias, and later titled one of the final episodes “Ozymandias”, which contained several allusions to the poem. The true story of Mary and Percy Shelley is definitely an interesting one — an educated, well-to-do teenage girl in the 19th century who’s an aspiring writer who falls in love with a married, radical poet and philosopher — so hopefully the indie A Storm in the Stars will manage to grab audiences.
[Source: THR | Photo credit: Dave3 for Geeks Of Doom]
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