Before he heads back to The Wasteland director George Miller will be tackling an original feature film with Three Thousand Years of Longing that frankly sounds a lot like a grown-up version of Aladdin. Though production on the film is delayed in the wake of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, we do have some news about the film as the logline has made its way online. As reported by The Illuminerdi, the film follows a “lonely British woman, who has decided to go on a vacation to Istanbul. While there, she accidentally finds a bottle that contains a wish-granting Djinn – giving her the chance to change her life with three wishes. George Miller is set to write and direct the upcoming film.”
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The only confirmed cast members for the new film are Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton, with Swinton seemingly taking on the “lonely British woman” role and Elba playing the “wish-granting Djinn,” this isn’t confirmed but seems likely at this point. Miller previously said that he cast the two in the parts after meeting them on separate occasions, saying that the film will offer them both something new that they haven’t done in their careers. The director also spoke about the mysterious title and story telling Deadline:
“I guess I’m hardwired to story in some way, and for me what happens is, stories seed in your head and they rattle around. It becomes rather Darwinian, survival of the fittest: the ones that have the most comprehensive promise are the ones that survive. This story I have been working on and thinking about for at least 15 years. There would always be several of these stories in my mind and it’s interesting, the ones that tend to fall away and why they fall away. The ones that are more insistent are usually so because they tick a lot of boxes and organically do a lot of things.”
Miller has previously confirmed that once he finished work on this movie he’ll be returning to the desert for the next Mad Max movie, which is reportedly a prequel focusing on the Imperator Furiosa character. Working on these two very unique movies was by design to as Miller explains.
“The more different the films are, the more interesting that is. A really good example: I was working on Happy Feet Two while Fury Road was getting up and then falling down. They couldn’t have been more different. One was animation, the other live action. It worked for me.”
It’s unclear when production on Three Thousand Years of Longing will eventually begin as the world still reels from the ongoing pandemic, with star Idris Elba being one of the first confirmed celebrities to have contracted the virus.
