Baz Luhrmann’s Joan of Arc Movie Has Been in the Works for 30 Years: ‘I Was Waiting for the Right Time’ to Tell This ‘Ultimate Teenage Girl Coming-of-Age Story’

Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming Joan of Arc movie has been in the works for decades.

“This is something he’s talked about for 30 years,” his wife and creative partner Catherine Martin told me Saturday at the LACMA Art+Film Gala, where Luhrmann was honored alongside sculptor Simone Leigh.

The teenaged Joan of Arc became a heroine after leading the French army to victory in Orléans in 1429 before being burned at the stake in 1431. Warner Bros. confirmed in September that Luhrmann was taking on the epic tale of France’s national heroine and saint Joan of Arc.

The film is based on “Blood Red, Sister Rose,” the 1974 novel about Joan of Arc by “Schindler’s List” author Thomas Keneally.

“I almost did Alexander the Great and then at one point I was going down the road on Napoleon, but more than ever, I realized I was waiting for the right time to tell this story and the idea of this ultimate teenage girl coming-of-age story set in a 100-year war,” Luhrmann said. “She’s a young girl who’s from a small town who manages to tell this 25-year-old king, ‘We’re going to be able to unite the country, and you’ll be king.’ It’s that inspiration, that uplift. It’s like now where the current generation needs to do what the generation before us did, and that is make space, lift up the new voices and the new energy, and make sure that they’re there to smash through this ossified world.”

The title role has yet to be cast. “Like Elvis, I do my process,” Luhrmann explained. “It’s the same one where I have no prejudice and I identify all possible talents, and I do the work. It’s a process of exploration. That’s what I’m doing right now.”

Martin said she has been prepping design of the film by visiting significant locations in France related to Joan of Arc, including her birthplace, Domrémy. “It’s sort of fascinating because everyone talks about her being a shepherdess, but in fact, her father was the head of the town, and they had the only stone house,” she said. “So there was a degree of sophistication in that household. And I just think it’s a fascinating subject, particularly in a time when I think youth is feeling very disfranchised. I think Joan felt the same way. And having a teenage daughter, I realize that when teenage girls put their mind to it, they can do anything — they can change the world.”

Joan of Arc’s story has been told on film and television many times, including in Luc Besson’s “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc,” starring Milla Jovovich. “Jeanne,” a French drama directed by Bruno Dumont and starring Lise Leplat Prudhomme, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019.