Confirmed by The Wrap – Rumor has it that Emma Watson will star in James Ponsoldt’s upcoming thriller The Circle. Tom Hanks will produce the adaptation of Dave Eggers’ recent best-selling novel, and star as the owner of The Circle, the “world’s most powerful internet company”. Emma will play Mae Holland, a recent graduate who can’t believe her luck when hired by the company, but soon finds out that things are not wonderful as they seem.
Production will start in September in California.
Ponsoldt in an interview with Collider said about Emma:
“I am a massive, massive fan of Emma. She’s one of my favorite actors. I mean, when we were first talking casting, I didn’t think that it would work out timing-wise because she’s doing Beauty and the Beast, but it sort of re-shifted and when we realized their schedule, we realized that it would be a possibility. I mean, I would get scared anytime I was like, working on a tight schedule where someone’s doing a huge, huge movie like that. My wife and I are actually having a kid later in the fall so it’s a super tight window for a lot of professional reasons and personal reasons, but in this case it looks like it’s gonna work so I’m excited.”
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.
