It was announced at Cannes (where else?) that Audrey Tautou would be playing fashion legend Coco Chanel in a new biopic - but now, with shooting just weeks away, Warners has stepped forward to finance and co-produce the film, titled Coco Avant Chanel.
It's to be directed by Anne Fontaine, whose film Comment j'ai tué mon père you may remember from a year or two back. The story is to be based on Edmonde Charles-Roux's biography L'Irreguliere, focusing on Chanel's ground-breaking ways and penchant for trend-setting - as an example for the fashion clueless in the audience, sunbathing was never popular in Europe until Coco came back from holiday with a golden tan. So when you think about it, her lasting legacy isn't just perfume and lilttle black dresses; it's also melanoma. Ooops.
Karl Lagerfeld, art director of the fashion house Chanel founded, will be overseeing the costumes, most of which will be re-creations of Chanel's own designs and which will therefore *totally *outclass Sex and the City in the costume department.
Anne and Camille Fontaine co-wrote the script, with Christopher "Atonement, Dangerous Liaisons" Hampton consulting. Production starts in Paris on September 15, and the film's due out next year.