Tom Hanks to Star in James Ponsoldt's Cyber-Thriller 'The Circle'

It's appropriate that just as Sundance is around the corner, a director who has built his career at the festival is announcing a brand new project. James Ponsoldt, director of Smashed and The Spectacular Now, is about to paint on a much larger canvas by adapting Dave Eggers' latest book, The Circle, with Tom Hanks on board to star.

Hanks is already on board to star in Tom Tykwer's adaptation A Hologram for the King, another novel by Eggers.  The Circle will be written and directed by Ponsoldt, and here's the synopsis:

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.

Eggers has always been good at crafting stories that reflect our current society (Away We Go, Promised Land) and The Circle fits in perfectly. Hanks will also produce, becoming part of the overall package that will be up for grabs in Hollywood tomorrow. Hopefully this doesn't completely derail Ponsoldt's Hillary Clinton film, Rodham, which still has yet to cast its lead.  His next film, The End of the Tour, will debut next month at Sundance starring Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel.