In what would be a very exciting pairing between actor and filmmaker, Michael Fassbender is in talks to star in Derek Cianfrance‘s DreamWorks drama “The Light Between Oceans,” TheWrap has learned.
The project is based on the international bestseller from first-time novelist M.L. Stedman, whose book has been translated into nearly 30 languages since it was published in the U.S. in July 2012 by Scribner.
Set on a remote Australian island in the years following World War I, story follows a lighthouse keeper and his wife who are faced with a moral dilemma when a boat washes ashore with a dead man and a two-month-old infant. When they decide to raise the child as their own, the consequences of their choice are devastating.
“Gravity” producer David Heyman will produce through his Heyday Films banner along with Jeffrey Clifford. Rosie Alison will executive produce, having brought the book into Heyday.
Cianfrance won the job by proving himself capable of handling emotional subject matter in his past films “Blue Valentine” and “The Place Beyond the Pines,” both of which starred Ryan Gosling.
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While Cianfrance is attached to direct several projects around town, “Light Between Oceans” will be next now that Cianfrance has found his leading man, who will shoot the DreamWorks film before “Prometheus 2.”
Fassbender next stars as young Magneto in “X-Men: Days of Future Past” and the title characters in Justin Kurzel’s “Macbeth” and Lenny Abrahamson’s “Frank.” He’s also attached to star in “Assassin’s Creed” for New Regency.
Fassbender is represented by CAA.