Industry sources are reporting that Australian actor Caleb Landry Jones has landed the male lead in Neil Jordan’s vampire flick. The ‘X-Men: First Class’ actor will reportedly star alongside Saoirse Ronan (Hanna) and Gemma Arterton (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) in ‘Byzantium’.
The screenplay is penned by Moira Buffini and is based one of her own plays.
’Byzantium’ centres on a mother and teenage vampire pairing whose begin their bloodsucking antics in a suburban town. With Arterton and Ronan playing the mother and daughter respectively, it is reported that Caleb Landry Jones will play a teenager dying of leukaemia. His struggle with his own mortality caused the teenage vampire (Ronan) to struggle with her own immortality.
’Byzantium’ is co-produced by Alan Moloney of Ireland’s Parallel Films and received financial support from the Irish Film Board in their July funding round. Parallel have yet to confirm that the project will film in Ireland (the story is set in a small UK town).
Directed by Neil Jordan and Produced by Stephen Woolley (Perrier’s Bounty), Alan Moloney (Neverland) of Parallel films and Liz Karlsen (Made in Dagenham) of Number 9 Films, filming on ‘Byzantium’ is mooted to begin in October. Stephen Woolley and Neil Jordan previously worked together on the 1994 Oscar nominated ‘Interview with a Vampire’, as well as ‘The Butcher Boy’, ‘Breakfast on Pluto’ and ‘Michael Collins’.
‘Byzantium’ has a budget of approximately £8 million and was developed with assistance from the UK Film Council, Parallel Films and the Irish Film Board.
