Casting has been announced for the upcoming Joy Division film, Control. Newcomer Sam Riley will play the brilliant-but-doomed singer Ian Curtis, who committed suicide in 1980 on the eve of the band's first American tour. Samantha Morton, who has previously been nominated for Oscars for her work in Woody Allen's Sweet And Lowdown and Jim Sheridan's In America, will play Curtis' widow, Deborah. (It is her book, Touching From A Distance, on which the screenplay is based.) German actress Alexandra Maria Lara, who just finished filming the new Francis Ford Coppola film Youth By Youth, will play the singer's lover Annik Honore. The film will be the first feature from acclaimed photographer and music video director Anton Corbijn (Nirvana's "Heart Shaped Box"). Deborah Curtis and Tony Wilson, Factory Records founder and the subject of 24 Hour Party People, will both be credited as co-producers. According to NME, New Order will rerecord some Joy Division tracks, as well as lay down some new songs, for the soundtrack. The production team hopes to begin shooting in Manchester later this year. www.neworderonline.com
