Martin Scorsese’s confirmed next film is The Invention of Hugo Cabret for Warner Bros. and Scorsese is already busy casting the feature, which Deadline reports just added Sacha Baron Cohen and Ben Kingsley as the first members of the cast.
The film is an adaptation of Brian Selznick’s best-selling children’s novel, centering on an orphaned boy who secretly lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station and looks after the clocks. He gets caught up in a mystery adventure when he attempts to repair a mechanical man. John Logan (The Aviator and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street) penned the adaptation.
Deadline’s Mike Fleming reports Baron Cohen will play the role of the station inspector and Kingsley will play George Melies, the famous silent filmmaker who plays a pivotal role in the film.
Kingsley most recently starred in Scorsese’s Shutter Island and will next be seen as Nizam in Touchstone’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
It should be interesting to see Scorsese’s first turn at a children’s feature, I get the feeling there is a lot to Scorsese we haven’t seen yet and perhaps this is just the start. Lord knows he has a library of film history in his head to pull from, and who knows what other genres will garner his interest. He turns 68-years-old this November and hopefully has a lot more work ahead of him, he certainly isn’t showing signs of slowing yet.
Hugo Cabret is expected to begin shooting in May for a 2011 release.
