Woody Allen’s ‘Bop Decameron’ Full Cast Announced

Just because he’s going on 76 this winter – and has averaged releasing a film per year for the last four decades – doesn’t mean that Woody Allen is ready to slow down just yet. The iconic New York writer/director has assembled yet another top notch cast for his latest cinematic project, titled The Bop Decameron.

Allen is prepared to star shooting his new romantic-dramatic-comedy this July, on location in Rome – even as his most recent overseas-set film, Midnight in Paris, looks to become his biggest box office success since the Oscar-winning Hannah and her Sisters was released, back in 1986.

Fans of the Woodmeister as an actor will be pleased to hear that Bop Decameron will also feature him working in front of the camera, for the first time since Scoop in 2006. Details about the project are largely being kept under wraps otherwise, though the plot is said to (in part) involve Allen as one-half of an American married couple who travels to Rome to meet the Italian man their daughter plans to marry. Seeing as this is a Woody Allen movie, much neurotic hand-wringing and comedy will definitely ensue.

The full cast includes the likes of Allen, Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Greta Gerwig (Greenberg), Ellen Page (Juno), Oscar-nominee Alec Baldwin (30 Rock), Alison Pill (Milk), and Oscar-winner Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful).

Also onboard are two familiar faces from previous entries in Allen’s filmography – Oscar-nominee Judy Davis (Husbands and Wives) and Oscar-winner Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) – as well as a supporting cast that includes (naturally) Italian thespians like Antonio Albanese, Fabio Armiliata, Alessandra Mastronardi, Ornella Muti, Flavio Parenti, and Alessandro Tiberi.

No one’s gone to see a Woody Allen movie in years (decades?) expecting anything but one of the following:

1. A comedy-of-manners about upper class individuals (usually, aspiring or struggling artists) who end up dealing with a variety of romantic and/or existential conundrums (Midnight in Paris, being the most recent example).
2. A screwball comedy that generally features Allen – or an actor basically doing their best Allen impersonation – as a bumbling neurotic who unwittingly gets involved in a high-stakes adventure (ex. Scoop, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, etc.).
3. A darkly philosophical tale about the emptiness of human existence, often filtered through the lens of a story about people who are ultimately rewarded for their bad deeds (ex. Cassandra’s Dream, Match Point, etc.).

The Bop Decameron sounds like it will fit into the first of those aforementioned categories – so chances are good you already know whether or not you’ll be giving the film a look when it hits theaters sometime in 2012.

Source: Gravier Productions/Medusa Film