Joe Wright’s ANNA KARENINA Adaptation Begins

In time for the DVD & Blu-Ray release of the film Hanna, director Joe Wright‘s next project for Focus Features, the adaptation of ANNA KARENINA, will start filming in the U.K. and Russia this month.
Starring Wright’s go-to girl Keira Knightley (Pride And Prejudice, The Atonement), Jude Law and Aaron Johnson.
Scripted by Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare In Love). Composer Dario Marianelli will handle the score.
Focus Features will release ANNA KARENINA in the second half of 2012. For the actors’ roles and the film’s plot synopsis, after this jump..

Keira Knightley, Academy Award-nominated for Pride & Prejudice, will star as Anna Karenina in her third collaboration with Mr. Wright. Ms. Knightley will be starring opposite two-time Academy Award nominee Jude Law, as Anna’s husband Aleksei Karenin; and Aaron Johnson (Nowhere Boy), as Count Vronsky. Rounding out the cast will be Kelly Macdonald (Boardwalk Empire), Matthew Macfadyen (Pride & Prejudice), Domhnall Gleeson (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), Alicia Vikander (The Seventh Son), two-time Academy Award nominee Emily Watson, Olivia Williams (Hanna), and Ruth Wilson (Luther).

The story unfolds in its original late-19th-century Russia high-society setting and powerfully explores the capacity for love that surges through the human heart, from the passion between adulterers to the bond between a mother and her children. As Anna (Ms. Knightley) questions her happiness, change comes to her family, friends, and community.