FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Directors Joel and Ethan Coen, the academy award winning auteurs behind True Grit, No Country For Old Men, and Fargo, may soon return to their midwestern roots. Through their production company, Mike Zoss Productions, the Coens have optioned Jim Snowden’s novel Dismantle the Sun, a novel about a doomed affair between a math teacher and his student set in the fictional Michigan town of Menominee Falls.

Terms of the deal are undisclosed, but Joel Coen said he was excited to bring Mr. Snowden’s novel to the screen. “Ever since Frances [McDormand] gave me the book to read, I’ve been possessed with the desire to film it. Having spent so much time recently filming in the south and southwest, it feels like an opportunity to return home.” Ethan Coen added, “I’m just glad we beat out Alexander Payne.”

The Coens can now set to work on a script, which already has Ryan Gosling, Kelly McDonald, attached as married couple Hal and Jodie Nickerson, along with Amanda Michalka as Ruth, the object of Hal’s doomed affections. “As with all her parts, Amanda’s going a bit overboard in preparation,” Ethan Coen said, “She called me up yesterday to tell me she’d be renting a house in the Upper Peninsula and spending the winter there just to get in touch with what it feels like. It’s a little crazy. We don’t even have financing yet, but I told her I’d see if anyone knows of a place. So let the word go forth to the towns of the U.P.: Amanda–persistent, relentless–is looking for open options locally.”

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