To finish off Tom Hanks week here at Film Club we’re going to take a quick look at the next film he’s got coming up. Cloud Atlas has been a pet obsession of mine since I read the novel by David Mitchell years ago and loved it, although it’s hard to imagine how one would adapt such an epic, expansive, strange story to the screen. It consists of six vaguely connected stories set in various times and places ranging from the South Pacific in the 19th century to an unnamed island in a distant post-apocalyptic future and it’s being helmed by not one, not two, but a trio of directors, The Wachowskis (The Matrix, Speed Racer) and Tom Tykwer (Perfume, Run Lola Run) with a hefty $100 million budget. The cast is outstanding, joining Hanks will be Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent and Jim Sturgess; all of them playing multiple roles across the six stories. It could be a disaster, a fiasco, a grand horrible mess or it just might be the best film of the year, we’ll have to wait til the end of this year to find out.