Baz Luhrmann to shoot an epic Joan of Arc film

Baz Luhrmann is set to direct an epic film about Joan of Arc, the young French peasant who believed God had sent her to lead an army during the Hundred Years’ War.

After taking Elvis to eight Oscar nominations, including best picture last year, the Australian director is starting a casting call for what is being described as “the ultimate teenage girl coming-of-age story, set in the Hundred Years’ War” in the Middle Ages.

Planning a Joan of Arc movie … Baz Luhrmann with Catherine Martin at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia last November.Credit: Getty

According to online entertainment journal Deadline, Warner Bros is backing a film that will be called Jehanne or Jehanne d’Arc.

The young woman who lands the role will play a French national heroine and patron saint who, after unlikely military triumphs, was ultimately burned at the stake aged about 19 in 1431.

It would be Luhrmann’s seventh film in a celebrated career that has included Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge! , Australia, The Great Gatsby and Elvis. He also directed the hip-hop series The Get Down for Netflix.

Joan of Arc’s story has long fascinated artists and filmmakers in France and around the world.

As well as works of literature, music, paintings, sculpture and theatre, it has been told for the screen many times, including silent versions directed by Georges Méliès, Cecil B. DeMille, Carl Theodor Dreyer – a classic – and Marco de Gastyne.

Joan has been played twice by Ingrid Bergman, first in a Hollywood film directed by Victor Fleming then an Italian version directed by husband Roberto Rossellini. Other actresses to play her in recent decades include Milla Jovovich in a film directed by Luc Besson, Leelee Sobieski in a Canadian mini-series and Clémence Poésy in a French film.

Milla Jovovich starred in Joan of Arc by French film director Luc Besson in 1999.Credit: GAUMONT

On stage, she has been played by such notable talents as Marion Cotillard and Sarah Snook in recent years.

While it will be a highly sought-after role among established young actresses, Luhrmann had no qualms about casting little-known Austin Butler as Elvis Presley in Elvis. His performance earned a best actor nomination at the Oscars.

Joan of Arc films have also unearthed screen talents over the decades.

For the 1957 film St Joan, Otto Preminger reportedly tested more than 18,000 young women for the role before choosing the unknown Jean Seberg who went on, after damning reviews for her early performances, to become a French New Wave icon in Breathless.

While few details about the new film have become public, Luhrmann would be expected to shoot it in Australia to take advantage of the country’s filmmaking incentives. He has shot all his films here, including Moulin Rouge!, set in Paris, The Great Gatsby, set in New York, and Elvis, set in various American locations, including Las Vegas.

Luhrmann, who turned 62 this week, dropped out of an English-language adaptation of the Russian novel The Master and Margarita earlier this year after concerns about the book rights. He has been approached for comment.

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