In the works: Willem Dafoe does "Antichrist."

Wednesday, August 13, 2008 | 9:55 AM

In the works: "Antichrist," Lars von Trier's $11 million English-language horror flick, having gotten its funding down late last month, now has a cast -- Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg "will play a couple who retreat to an isolated cabin in the woods following the death of their child." Dafoe's actually coming back for more -- he's worked with Von Trier before, in "Manderlay." [Variety] And Isabel Coixet, whose "Elegy" topped out the indie box office this past weekend, is in talks to cast Rinko Kikuchi in "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo," "a Japanese-set dramatic thriller that centers on a fish-market employee who doubles as a contract killer." [Hollywood Reporter]

On the unlikely source material front, the rights to former Veuve Clicquot CEO Mireille Guiliano's smuggish best-seller "French Women Don't Get Fat" have been picked up by Hilary Swank and producing partner Molly Smith to be worked into a rom-com about "girl-next-door champagne company middle manager who learns some tough life lessons which help her become the woman she's always wanted to be," with Swank possibly starring. [Hollywood Reporter] Meanwhile, Universal Pictures, fishing for a new epic franchise, has acquired the rights to Robert Jordan's jillion-page "The Wheel of Time" fantasy series. Jordan passed away last year, but the 12th and final book in the series is still set for publication in 2009, with another author working to finish the novel using Jordan's notes. [Variety]

Todd Brown at Twitch notes that Katsuhito Ishii, director of "The Taste of Tea," has two projects in progress -- one, "Sorasoi," is "a comic mockumentary tracking a group of college students in a hostel training for a dance competition." The other, "U-BEE," seems to be something you play as ambient video in the background for decorative purposes. [Twitch]

Acquired: "An Omar Broadway Film," a doc composed largely of footage that Broadway surreptitiously shot as an inmate of Newark's Northern State Prison, has been picked up by HBO, who'll give the film a New York/L.A. theatrical run to qualify it for an Oscar nomination. [Variety]

[Photo: "Manderlay," IFC Films, 2005]