Paramount Takes off ‘The Moon and the Sun’ Starring Pierce Brosnan from Its Scheduled Release Date

The Moon and the Sun, the movie adaptation of Vonda N. McIntyre's 1997 Nebula Award-winning historical science fiction novel of the same name, was originally set for release to US theaters on April 10. Now, less than a month before that date, Paramount Pictures, which acquired the distribution rights to film, has taken it off from its announced release schedule.

Directed by Sean McNamara from a script written by Ronald Bass, Barry Berman, Laura Harrington, Bill Mechanic and James Schamus, The Moon and the Sun follows the story of 17th century French King Louis XIV's (Pierce Brosnan) quest for immortality as he captures and tries to steal the lifeforce of a mermaid, a quest complicated when his illegitimate daughter Marie-Josephe (Kaya Scodelario) discovers and befriends the creature (Fan Bingbing).

According to the story, Father Yves de la Croix (Benjamin Walker), a natural philosopher and explorer, on his return from a mission brings back two specimens of sea creatures: a dead male and a live female which was placed in the Apollo fountain in the Palace of Versailles. In the course of acting as Yves' assistant, sketching the dead male sea creature's dissection, and caring for the live specimen, Marie-Josèphe soon realizes that the creature is a sentient sea woman. Thus, Marie-Josèphe tries to convince the others at court, including Yves, that the sea woman is intelligent and hopefully free her. Unfortunately, no one but Pere de Chaise (William Hurt) took her seriously. The king intends to keep the creature and harvest her life force in his quest for immortality. In the end though, Marie-Joseph did manage to save and set the mermaid free. 

The Moon and The Sun also stars Ben Lloyd-Hughes as Jean-Michel Lintillac, Paul Ireland as Benoit, Pablo Schreiber as Dr. Labarthe, Rachel Griffiths as Abbess, and Crystal Clarke as Magali. Filming for The Moon and the Sun began in early April 2014 and wrapped-up in end of May 2014. The studio has not yet released any official trailer clip nor teaser poster for the upcoming film, although it did distributed to some media outlets still photos from the set. There is no announcement yet as to when The Moon and The Sun will be hitting the theaters.