Peter Weir is one of the finest directors working today -- he's the man behind such fantastic movies as "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," "The Truman Show," "Witness," "Dead Poets Society," and many more. The performances he gets out of actors like Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, and Robin Williams will probably go down as some of their personal bests. But unfortunately for us film fans, Weir is notoriously choosy about his projects, and years go by before we see something new from him.
Happily though, a new movie from Weir is finally on its way. According to Variety, he's set to direct "The Way Back," the true story of a group of soldiers who escaped from a Siberian gulag in 1940.
It's based on a script Weir penned himself, based largely on Slavomir Rawicz's firsthand account "The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom." Rawicz was captured by the Red Army in 1939, and managed to escape with several other inmates, traveling across the Siberian arctic, the Gobi desert, and the Himalayas before finally settling in Tibet and India.
The movie is set to begin filming in March, on location in Bulgaria. There's no word on who might star, and I'm anxious to see who he enlists for this grueling trek. This is one of the rare movies you know in your gut is going to be good -- I can't name a single bad Weir film. They're solid all the way through.
Are you as excited by the prospect of a new Weir film as I am? It's impossible to say who he'll cast, but what actors would you like to see him work with?
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