Tom Hanks says Cloud Atlas is “going to be a beast”

by Liam on November 19, 2011

Apart from a few set images in September we haven’t heard or seen much from the movie adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which is being directed by The Wachowskis (The Matrix) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). Halle Berry broke her foot chasing a goat during the second week of filming, which caused some shooting to be delayed, but the cast have been in Berlin for the past month and will continue shooting at various places around the world until mid-December.
While promoting the DVD and Blu-ray release of Larry Crowne Tom Hanks said Cloud Atlas is a “beast” and is going to be “wild”. He also echoed what Tom Tykwer said earlier this year that it’s essentially a “big-scale adult movie”.
From Flickering Myth:

Boy, that’s going to be a beast. It’s going to be wild. Those guys are geniuses! I admire those guys’ films because they throw deep and long. Those are uncompromising movies that are forcing the audience to go on a very deep and different track. Very adult kind of journey. Quite frankly, I want to be tested like that. Then you match it up with the material of Cloud Atlas, which is pretty spectacular. And the screenplay is off the scale! I just want to be part of something that is much, much bigger than showing up and hitting the marks. I’ve had good experiences of being the guy in a movie, and in huge pieces of commerce, like the Robert Langton movies, and it’s part burden and part challenge. It’s part ‘Let’s just get the friggin’ thing done’, as well as how as artists do we make sure this beat is about something. And that is a little bit about what the Wachowskis are going to demand from Cloud Atlas, of me, and plenty of other people. It’s a big ensemble – so it’s not a vehicle for any one of us that are in it.

The movie, which also stars Hugo Weaving, Keith David, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, David Gyasi, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, Chinese actress Zhou Xun and South Korea’s Doona Bae, follows six storylines ranging from the South Pacific in the 19th Century to California in the 1970s to a post-apocalyptic future. Most of the cast will be playing multiple characters, and they’ll be swapping race and gender.
No release date has been set for Cloud Atlas, but Warner Bros. is expected to release the movie sometime in late 2012.