Though Dane DeHaan recently made his superhero movie debut, it appears that he’s keen on switching things up in the near future by leading a full-on musical. The actor is attached to star in the original musical Ziggy alongside Rooney Mara, which will revolve around a hunchback escape artist (DeHaan) who arrives in New York in the late 1920s and falls in love with the fiancé of a powerful media mogul. Mara will play the aforementioned love interest, and the story will chart Ziggy’s rise to stardom and subsequent fall “amid a romantic world crashing down on its own impossible idealism.” The picture comes from writer/director Diesel Schwarze, a protégé of Baz Luhrmann.
Hit the jump for more on Ziggy and the schedules of DeHaan and Mara.
Per Deadline, Schwarze and Electric City Entertainment are partnering with British music producer/songwriter Alex Da Kid to develop original contemporary music for Ziggy, as the film is still in the early stages. Schwarze worked with Luhrmann on both Moulin Rogue and La Boheme on Broadway, so one imagines he’s picked up a thing or two about musical flair.
After playing a series of moody and introspective characters, Mara recently signed on to star in Joe Wright’s upcoming reimagining Pan. The Warner Bros. film is currently in production in London, and Mara plays Tiger Lily in the potential franchise-starter. The actress has also been circling Red Sparrow as a possible reteaming with David Fincher, and she’ll next be seen in Stephen Daldry’s drama Trash.
As for DeHaan, he most recently finished filming the role of James Dean in director Anton Corbjin’s Life. The actor is still poised to reprise his role as Green Goblin in a future Spider-Man film, but Sony has been rethinking its franchise strategy after the disappointment of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
