Olivier Assayas is making a lit-world comedy (until he changes his mind again)

Yet, as Variety reports from the Locarno film festival, where Assayas is presiding over the jury, both of these projects have been tabled in favor of something called E-Book, which will reunite Assayas with Juliette Binoche, with whom he previously worked on Summer Hours and Clouds Of Sils Maria. In fact, Binoche and Assayas go back even further than that; the French icon had her breakthrough as the 21-year-old star of André Téchiné’s Rendez-Vous, which was co-written by a then-unknown Assayas, and the director-star-writer trio of Téchiné, Binoche, and Assayas would subsequently reunite 13 years later for Alice And Martin.

E-Book, which is set in Paris’ publishing industry, is being billed as Assayas’ first straight-up comedy (black comedies like Irma Vep don’t count, apparently), and will co-star Guillaume Canet, Vincent Macaigne, Christa Théret, and Pascal Greggory. The project is being produced in France by Charles Gilibert, Assayas’ regular producer—until, of course, the writer-director decides he feels like doing something else or there’s another chance to get Idol’s Eye financed or he just feels like screwing with Cannes prognosticators. If we had our way, he’d just go an make another movie with Kristen Stewart.