Polanski to film 'God of Carnage' in 2011: co-writer

Roman Polanski will shoot a new film based on an award-winning French play in early 2011, now that Switzerland has rejected a US bid to extradite him on child sex charges, the playwright said Wednesday.

Yasmina Reza, who won fame for her award-winning Broadway and West End hit "Art", has been working with Polanski since 2009 on plans to adapt her work "God of Carnage," which was named best play at the 2009 US Tony awards.

Reza told AFP by telephone Polanski would shift the play's action, which shows an increasingly-chaotic meeting between middle-class parents whose sons have had a playground fight, to New York but would shoot it in Europe.

"The shoot is planned in early 2011. The location has not yet been chosen, but since Roman only has the right to go to Poland, Switzerland and France, there is a good chance the shoot will be close-by," she added.

"We had already talked about it before his arrest. The real work started when he was under house arrest in his chalet in Gstaad, where I went several times," Reza said.

"We wrote the script of the film together. Then when we had finished, we gave it to someone to translate, because the action of the play will be transferred to Brooklyn and the film will be made in English."

Reza said the film had not yet been cast.

Polanski, 76, had been under house arrest in Switzerland pending the US demand for him to be sent to California to face justice for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

On Monday, Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf announced he would not be extradited and could walk free. The United States has vowed to pursue its three-decade hunt for the Oscar-winning Franco-Polish director.

Polanski has not returned to the United States since 1977, when he fled after making a plea bargain in the child sex case. His last film, "The Ghost Writer," was set in the United States but filmed on location in Germany.

Reza said she had spoken to Polanski since Switzerland's announcement but declined to indicate his whereabouts. He has been stalked by photographers since his arrest.

"Roman is a very strong man," Reza said. "He never stopped working."