Elijah Wood set to tickle the ivories in upcoming thriller GRAND PIANO

Elijah Wood is one busy and diverse acting bee these days. Besides doing voice work in Disney XD's animated series Tron: Uprising, the premiere of his star turn in Maniac at Cannes later this month, and continuing with a second season of the television program Wilfred, he has now signed on to star in Spanish director Eugenio Mira's new film, Grand Piano.

Written by Damien Chazelle (screenwriter of The Last Exorcism 2 and writer/director of Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench), Wood will play a concert pianist who returns to the stage after a long absence due to stage fright. But as he is about to perform, he finds a threatening note waiting on his music sheets. Under pressure, he must perform his best concert to save his and his wife's lives.

In his original article on the casting, Boys Kit describes this as Speed at a piano, but sources indicate that it's more of a Hitchcock-style thriller. Anyone who has ever seen footage of the great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould knows how frenetic a musician can be. Wood certainly has the range to pull off that kind of intensity and has proven with his work in films such as The Lord of the Rings and Sin City that he can grab the audience's attention. Mira's previous films, The Birthday and Agnosia, have shown a flair for mixing the real and the fantastic with stunning cinematography and haunting atmosphere. With Rodrigo Cortés and Adrián Guerra producing (the minds behind the intense, claustrophobic thriller Buried and the recent Red Lights), and Mira and Wood behind and in front of the camera, it is certainly one to watch for.