Tobey Maguire: Ang Lee's Life of PI!

Tobey Maguire is set to play a journalist interviewing the protagonist Pi as he relates the tale which makes up the large part of the novel, that of him being stranded on a boat with three anthropomorphic animals who eat each other in order to survive. And, if this doesn’t seem an infinitely unfilmable piece already, Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) has chosen (or been forced) to shoot this cerebral narrative in the absurd medium of 3D.

Lee said of working with Maguire for the third time after The Ice Storm and Ride With The Devil;

“I am delighted that Tobey has joined the film, he is one of my favourite actors that I have had the pleasure of working with and I am so excited that we get to work together for the third time.”

Other names already attached to the project include Suraj Sharma as Pi, Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire) as the same character in later life, Gerard Depardieu, Adil Hussain and Bollywood mainstay Tabu as Pi’s mother.

The novel has been adapted for the screen by David Magee with production duties being shared between Gil Netter and David Womark for the incredibly specific long-term release date of December 14th 2012. Maguire, meanwhile, is currently working with Weinstein product The Details and is set to star in Baz Luhrmann’s equally preposterous sounding screen version of The Great Gatsby.