Steven Spielberg to direct Mark Rylance again in The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara

Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford better watch out, because Mark Rylance is quickly becoming Steven Spielberg’s new muse. Rylance has starred in two of Spielberg’s last three movies, Bridge Of Spies and The BFG, and now he’s going to be starring in Spielberg’s next project after Ready Player One. According to Deadline, Spielberg will be directing an adaptation of David Kertzer’s The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara, which tells the story of a Jewish boy in 1858 Italy who is secretly baptized and taken from his family by dastardly Christians. The boy’s parents try to rescue him, and it eventually snowballs into “a larger political battle that pits the Papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification.” Rylance—who won an Academy Award for Bridge Of Spies—will be playing Pope Pius IX, a guy who is definitely on Team Christianity, which sort of makes him the villain of this story. (Of course, like Bridge Of Spies, it’s more of an idealogical thing than good guys vs. bad guys, but it’s hard not to see one side as bad guys when they kidnap a child.)

The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara will go into production early next year.