Toni Collette, Matthew Goode to topline comedy “Birthmarked”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Toni Collette and Matthew Goode are starring in the independent comedy “Birthmarked,” with shooting underway near Montreal and Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais directing, Variety said.

Collette and Goode are joining Andreas Apergis, Michael Smiley, Fionnula Flanagan and Suzanne Clément in the cast. Pierre Even of Item 7 is producing with co-producer Susan Mullen of Parallel Film Productions. The duo recently collaborated on “Brooklyn,” starring Saoirse Ronan.

Executive producers are Jeff Sackman and Berry Meyerowitz who will also handle international sales, and eOne’s Mark Slone. The film will be released in Canada by eOne.

The script is written by Marc Tulin, from an original story by Hoss-Desmarais and Marc Tulin, who previously worked together on Hoss-Desmarais’ first feature “Whitewash.”

Collette and Goode are portraying two respected scientists who quit their university jobs in 1977 to conduct an experiment they think will revolutionize understanding of human identity.

The project aims to raise three children contrarily to their genetic predispositions to prove the ultimate power of nurture over nature with a newborn girl adopted from two feeble-minded parents, is raised to be smart; a newborn boy adopted from two anger-prone parents is raised to be a pacifist; and their own biological son, who comes from a long lineage of scientific brains, is raised to become a revered artist.

Collette won an Emmy for “United States of Tara” and will be seen in “Yellow Birds” and “XXX: The Return of Xander Cage.” Goode most recently starred in “Allied,” directed by Robert Zemeckis alongside Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard and was in the finale of “Downton Abbey.”