John C. Reilly Joins Colin Farrell in ‘The Lobster’

LONDON – John C. Reilly, Ashley Jensen (TV’s Ugly Betty), Michael Smiley (The World’s End) and Jessica Barden (Far From the Madding Crowd) have joined Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz in Oscar-nominated Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos‘ English-language debut, The Lobster.

The movie, which has also cast Ben Whishaw, Lea Seydoux, Olivia Colman, Ariane Labed and Aggeliki Papoulia, has begun shooting in Ireland.

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Co-written by Lanthimos and his longtime collaborator, Efthymis Filippou, the love story is set in the near future where finding a partner is a matter of life or death.

Single people, according to the rules of The City, are arrested and transferred to The Hotel and are obliged to find a mate within 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into The Woods.

The project is being produced by Element Pictures, Limp and Scarlet Films.

Producers on the film are Lanthimos, Lee Magiday, Ed Guiney and Ceci Dempsey, with Element’s Andrew Lowe and Film4’s Tessa Ross and Sam Lavender acting as executive producers.

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Isabel Davis is the lead executive for the BFI Film Fund, while Rory Gilmartin will take a credit for the Irish Film Board, one of the film’s backers. 

Partnering on the project are Christos V. Konstantakopoulos of Faliro House in Greece, Carole Scotta of Haut et Court, which will be both the French co-producer and distributor of the film, and Derk-Jan Warrink, Joost de Vries and Leontine Petit of Lemming Films in the Netherlands.

The Lobster is being financed by British broadcaster Channel 4’s standalone film unit Film4, Irish Film Board, the BFI Film Fund, marking the U.K.’s organization’s first film through its minority co-production strand, Eurimages, Greek Film Centre, CNC, the Dutch Film Fund and Canal Plus.