355: Actress Fan Bingbing Retains Her Spot In The Female Spy Ensemble

Variety reports that Fan Bingbing (X-Men: Days Of Future Past, The White-Haired Witch Of Lunar Kingdon) will yet see her starring alongside her colleagues in the female spy ensemble, 355. The news comes just as the actress has since emerged from obscurity following a disappearance from the public for several months – part of the extensive fallout she’s faced amid China’s sprawling crackdown on tax evasion last year.

With 355, Bingbing re-officiates her position with headliners Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard. Simon Kinberg (upcoming Dark Phoenix) will direct the project from a screenplay by Theresa Rebeck described as a “large-scale espionage film about international agents in a grounded, edgy action thriller”. Universal acquired the film last summer at Cannes for a $20 million deal with Chastain set to star, as well as produce via her Freckle Films banner.

Question remains, however, as to who will help finance the film now that Huayi Brothers Media has backed out of the film – indicative of the likely sentiment over Fan’s public image; Amid facing certain degrees of career censorship, the actress broke her silence last Fall with a public apology, and was ordered to pay up to $130 million dollars in taxes and penalties.