Toronto: Atom Egoyan has gone a little bit Hollywood, hiring Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth to star in his latest feature Somebody Loves You, now in prep for a fall shoot in Toronto, L.A. and London.

The duo star as a veteran comedy team whose long-ago implication in the death of a young woman is re-examined by an as-yet uncast reporter. Egoyan has adapted the script from the novel Where The Truth Lies by Rupert Holmes and is again teamed with producer Robert Lantos. It is the fifth time they have worked together, following movies such as Ararat, The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica.

‘Stylistically this is not all that different from Atom’s body of work, but in terms of story and subject matter it is,’ says Lantos. ‘It’s based on a book about icons of pop culture… this is a mainstream story.’

Lantos came in after seeing Egoyan’s first draft, and steered him through another five versions. ‘As the budgets get bigger and the stakes get higher I become more involved in all the details. This budget is very high by Canadian standards,’ just under $30 million, ‘so I’m very involved. Script, music, hiring of crews, location, casting. Every single detail.’

Egoyan says Lantos was a big help getting the mood right. ‘It’s a world he personally lived in, through the ’70s in L.A. as an ambitious young film producer. I was stuck in B.C. in high school, so why not take advantage of someone who knows the details of the time?’

He admits the book was a ‘guilty pleasure’ but thinks it has a lot in common with his other scripts. ‘I’ve always been interested in hidden history, history that’s not so evident and how we get access to it,’ he says. ‘And in all my films seduction has been a huge part of the story.’

The pic is a Canada/U.K. copro between Lantos’ Serendipity Point Films and First Choice Film and produced by execs Donald Starr, Daniel Taylor and Colin Leventhal. Coproducers are Sandra Cunningham and Chris Chrisafis. Funders include Astral Media, Telefilm Canada and Corus Entertainment, plus some private investors. A release date has not been set.