Roman Polanski's New Film Finds US Distributor

There's been another unusual turn in the life of Roman Polanski. As you know, the Oscar-winning director was taken into custody while in Switzerland a few weeks back, stemming from his statuatory rape charge from the 1970s. He fled the US prior to sentencing and hasn't been back since. And while extradition is still a distinct possibility, Polanski paid $4.5 million in bail and moved into house arrest in a Swiss chalet. As house arrests go, that one sounds OK to me. Variety reports that Polanski is making news for professional reasons now, with Summit agreeing to distribute the embattled filmmaker's new thriller The Ghost Writer sometime in the first half of next year. It's surprising for two reasons. The first is that, since this is a foreign production, there's clearly not a studio timetable for Ghost Writer the way Summit might (and does) have with movies from the Twilight series. So why not wait until the guy's legal issues clear up? That could mean it's a film worth pouncing on in spite of the possible backlash, and Polanski has certainly made his share of those over the years. The second reason this news is unexpected is that Summit is setting the table with teenage vampire movies, and I rather doubt the news that the Twilight studio is so quick to pick up a film by a felon awaiting extradition for a child sex charge will go without some kind of boycott proposal from a parents' group. I'm not condoning that, but because this case is still ongoing, the release date could be in the general vicinity of Polanski returning to the US for sentencing or the actual sentence itself, if that actually ever happens. Strange timing all the way around. An added dimension is that Polanski's victim is officially fighting the director's extradition, and her attorney wants the whole case dropped, arguing this week that "32 years is enough." But wait, there's more: "In an eerie parallel, comments The Los Angeles Times, "[Polanski's] new movie also involves a prominent figure living in exile under solitary conditions: It tells of a former British prime minister who is holed up on an island off the East Coast of the US." Polanski has a good cast in The Ghost Writer, including Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGrgor, and Kim Cattrall, so even organically, this could conceivably be something to keep on your radar. I wonder if the film will be helped with the circus in tow.