It is not clear if Polanski's on-going warrant from a statutory rape charge dating back to 1978 prompted him to change the setting to France where he has lived since the alleged incident. Last year, he directed Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly in another play adaptation, Carnage, which was also set in New York, though directed from the safety of France.
This will be Seigner's the fourth collaboration with her husband, following Frantic, Bitter Moon, and The Ninth Gate, according to BBC. In the latest collaboration, she will star opposite French heart-throb Louis Garrel.
"I've been looking for a chance to make a film in French with Emmanuelle for a long time," Polanski said in a statement. "Reading Venus in Fur, I realized the moment had arrived."
The Lionsgate production will begin shooting in November, so perhaps a Cannes premiere is in the works.
Quick synopsis from Wikipedia:
The writer-director of a new play, an adaptation of the novel which inspired the term Masochism, is on the telephone lamenting the inadequacies of all the actresses who showed up that day to audition for the lead character. Suddenly, at the last minute, a new actress bursts in, the exemplar of every fault he has decried: needy, crude, compliant, desperate. Yet over the next 90 minutes, the balance of power shifts as the actress establishes total dominance over the director, exactly as in the novel.