Kimberly Peirce to team with Charlize Theron on The Ice at the Bottom of the World

Oscar-winner Charlize Theron is teaming with out Boys Don't Cry director Kimberly Peirce on an adaptation of Mark Richard's novel The Ice at the Bottom of the World. At the recent Cannes Film Festival the actress confirmed that she and Peirce have been collaborating on the indie project, which they hope to shoot sometime toward the fall of 2005. She said that Newmarket Films--which distributed her Oscar-winning performance in Patty Jenkins's Monster--is expected to distribute and possibly finance. Richard's novel, a collection of 10 short stories primarily set in the American South, carries a running theme of love and loss and birth and death centering on a cross-section of redneck characters. It's unclear what story line Richard followed in adapting his novel for the big screen. Theron will first star as a svelte assassin in Aeon Flux for Girlfight director Karyn Kusama and Paramount, followed by the sexual harassment drama Class Action for Niki Caro (Whale Rider) and Warner Bros. She's also attached to star in and produce Universal's Jinx, based on a graphic novel about a bounty hunter. She was in Cannes promoting HBO Films' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, in which she plays Swedish actress Britt Ekland.