Bel Canto Film, Starring Julianne Moore and Ken Watanabe, Lands Deal With Screen Media

Tony nominee and opera star Renée Fleming lends her voice to the film, based on the Ann Patchett novel.

The film adaptation of Bel Canto, starring Oscar winner Julianne Moore and Tony and Oscar nominee Ken Watanabe, has been picked up by Screen Media for North American distribution rights, reports Variety. The movie is set to be released in September.

Based on the Ann Patchett novel (which also inspired the 2015 opera of the same name), the Paul Weitz-helmed film stars Moore as Roxane Coss, an America soprano who travels to South America to give a private concert, which is interrupted by guerrillas and leads to a hostage crisis.

Opera superstar Renée Fleming, who is Tony Award-nominated this year for her work in the Broadway revival of Carousel, provides the singing voice for Moore’s character in the film.

Watanabe, who earned a Tony nomination in 2015 for The King and I, will reprise his performance as the King of Siam opposite Kelli O’Hara when the Lincoln Center Theater production bows in London's West End beginning June 21.

The film, co-written by Weitz and Anthony Weintraub, also features Sebastian Koch, Christopher Lambert, Ryo Kase, Tenoch Huerta, and María Mercedes Coroy.

