Here’s one way to really not direct a MY FAIR LADY remake – take on a film about a 14 year old female ass-kicker. That looks to be director Joe Wright’s next move, as the Brit is apparently eyeing HANNA, a film with a couple of different synopses floating around right now. Variety says the film is about a 14 year old girl who, “after being raised by her ex-U.S. military father in the Swedish wilderness…uses the survival skills she learned to battle U.S. intelligence agencies while she treks across Europe to be reunited with her father.”

However, the Hollywood Reporter describes the story as “having shades of LA FEMME NIKITA and the BOURNE films” and “centers on a 14-year-old Eastern European girl who has been raised by her father to be a cold-blooded killing machine. She connects with a French family, forms a friendship with their daughter and goes through the pangs of adolescence. When the girl is dragged back to her father’s world and discovers that she was bred as a killer in a CIA prison camp, she must fight her way to a free life.”

Either way, HANNA is set to follow a young teenage girl with deadly skills. The Playlist has already thrown out the idea of Wright’s ATONEMENT mini-star, Saoirse Ronan, as a possible idea for the lead, which strikes me as a superb idea. Wright already directed her to an Oscar nomination for her work in their 2008 film. Ronan’s upcoming performance in THE LOVELY BONES will surely continue her streak of fine, engaging work.

I am looking forward to more information and a more clarified plot description for HANNA, and hopefully confirmation that Wright is on board to helm the project. I loved both his version of PRIDE & PREJUDICE and ATONEMENT (though, like most everyone else, was not a fan of THE SOLOIST). His visual sense is always engaging, however, and taking it to an action bent might be a very wise career choice for Wright. Also, you say “LA FEMME NIKITA,” and I’m pretty much already queued up at the box office.