John Boyega Joins 'The Circle' From James Ponsoldt

For a couple years after Attack the Block we expected to see John Boyega getting great roles, but it took a bit of time. But the events of 2014, from the indie Imperial Dreams to the 24 revival and nabbing a lead role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, have given him new power. Now he'll join Tom Hanks and Emma Watson in the The Circle, a satire about the erosion of privacy in the information age, written and directed by James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now, The End of the Tour).

Deadline has the news; The Circle is based on the Dave Eggers novel of the same name. According to Deadline, Boyega will play Ty, "the iconized boy-wonder visionary of the Circle," with the Circle being a bit like a hyper-accelerated mash-up of Google and Apple, or a different vision of the all-encompassing tech company run by Oscar Isaac's character in Ex Machina.

The other two major characters are Mae, a new Circle employee to be played by Emma Watson, and a more mysterious older man played by Tom Hanks.

Here's the book jacket account of the novel:

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency.

As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company's modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can't believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman's ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.