Olivia Colman, Dev Patel to star in twisted romance Wicker

I’d follow Olivia Colman to any project, and her latest sounds delightfully twisted. It was announced today that Olivia Colman and Dev Patel are set to star in Wicker, a romance set to be directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson.

“On the outskirts of a village by the sea, lives a Fisherwoman (Colman); smelly, single and perpetually ridiculed,” reads the official logline. “One day, fed up with her stuffy, small-minded neighbors, she commissions herself a husband to be made from wicker (Patel). In an otherwise conservative town, this unconventional romance sparks outrage, jealousy and chaos.” In addition to directing Wicker, Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson also wrote the script, which is adapted by Ursula Wills-Jones’ short story The Wicker Husband. Production is expected to launch next year.

Olivia Colman will next be seen starring alongside Timothée Chalamet in Paul King’s Wonka. Per the official description: “Based on the extraordinary character at the center of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl’s most iconic children’s book and one of the best-selling children’s books of all time, ‘Wonka‘ tells the wondrous story of how the world’s greatest inventor, magician and chocolate-maker became the beloved Willy Wonka we know today.” The film is set to be released on December 15th. Colman is also set to appear in Paddington in Peru, the third installment of the beloved Paddington franchise. She plays the reverend mother, “a blithe and sunny guitar-playing nun who runs the home for retired bears.”

As for Dev Patel, he was most recently featured in Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar short films for Netflix alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Rupert Friend, Richard Ayoade, and more. He will next be seen starring in Monkey Man for Netflix, which he also co-wrote, produced, and directed. The film follows a recently released ex-felon living in India who struggles to adjust to a world of corporate greed and eroding spiritual values.