Articles >> Variety, Jan. 8 2009

Director Peter Weir will find "The Way Back" with Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan.

The thesps are in final negotiations to star for Weir in the fact-based story of a group of soldiers who engineered a grueling escape from a Siberian gulag in 1942.

Weir wrote the script, based on the memoir by Slavomir Rawicz. Farrell plays a tough, tattooed Russian; Harris an American; and Sturgess portrays a young Polish inmate. Ronan will play a Russian on the run who meets up with the fugitives.

The film will begin production in March in Bulgaria, financed by producer Spitfire Pictures through its Cyrte Investments-backed holding company HS Media. The film is the first Weir has directed since 2003's "Master and Commander."

Weir is producing with Joni Levin, Duncan Henderson, Spitfire's Nigel Sinclair and Scott Rudin. Keith Clarke, John Ptak and Guy East are executive producers along with Simon Oakes and Jonathan Schwartz.

Farrell, who is Golden Globe-nominated for his performance in "In Bruges," most recently completed the Neil Jordan-directed "Ondine," the Terry Gilliam-directed "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" and the Danis Tanovic-directed "Triage." Harris, who directed and starred in "Appaloosa," just starred in the Ash Adams-directed "Once Fallen.

Sturgess, who most recently toplined "21," will next be seen in the Wayne Kramer-directed "Crossing Over" and "Fifty Dead Men Walking."

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