After critical successes Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, director Joe Wright faltered a bit with his next film, The Soloist, which received lukewarm reviews.  In November, we reported that Wright's next film would be Hanna, a story about "14-year-old Eastern European girl who has been raised by her father to be a cold-blooded killing machine" said to resemble La Femme Nikita and the Bourne films.  The announcement still seems like an odd (though not unappealing) next step for Wright's career.

Now, Screen Daily reports that Wright has chosen Saoirse Ronan to fill the lead role of the teen assassin, who I would presume is named Hanna.  Ronan was nominated for an Oscar her work in Atonement, so it makes perfect sense that when Wright needed a teenage girl to fill the role, he looked to re-team with the young actress.  It is worth pondering whether Kick-Ass and Hanna could spark a trend of violent young girls in Hollywood, and what that would imply about society.