Daniel Craig may have dropped `Blindness` for `Defiance`

As reported earlier in the week, Daniel Craig has signed up to play the lead in a true story about the Polish Resistance during the Second World War.

CHUD points out today that Defiance may have been chosen over another project.

"...talk all over Hollywood today is that Craig is off Blindness, Meirelles's adaptation of Jose Saramago's brainy science-fiction novel about an unnamed city being plunged into chaos by a white blindness epidemic. The book is a complex depiction of societal collapse (Devin aptly referred to it in his '06 news item as "George Romero with glaucoma instead of zombies"), and is really more about (very nihilistic) ideas than narrative, which is why many were heartened that a smart, visually gifted filmmaker like Meirelles attached himself to the project. Add Craig and Julianne Moore to that equation and it sounded like the Children of Men of 2008."

"Subtract Craig, and Meirelles might as well start lobbying for Clive Owen, because there aren't too many other bankable leads who can entice audiences to try something outside of their comfort zone. (Actually, Craig hasn't proven that he's a draw outside of the Bond franchise; The Invasion will be the heat check - i.e. unless Warner Brothers dumps the troubled picture.) In Meirelles's favor is the fact that he's very popular with actors after The Constant Gardener, but he needs to get this movie going soon before his artistic cachet diminishes."

Filming of the 22nd James Bond film is scheduled for January 2008, for a release on November 7th 2008.

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