Sofia Coppola’s films are noted for the care she takes in vividly showing the scenery as well as the story. Her Marie Antoinette, for example, was almost entirely about the clothing and opulent palaces, while Lost in Translation was as much about Tokyo and the Park Hyatt where the characters stayed as the characters themselves. Now, in her new film, Sofia is making a movie “starring” the Chateau Marmont. The film will star Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning, Dakota’s 11-year old sister, and will be about an actor (Dorff) whose daughter comes to visit him at the Chateau.

The writer-director who shot her “Lost in Translation” at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, practically making a character out of the antiseptic structure, will set her next film at the iconic Chateau Marmont in Hollywood.

Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning will star in the Focus Features dramedy “Somewhere,” which Coppola penned.

Story centers on a bad-boy actor stumbling through a life of excess at the Chateau Marmont. With an unexpected visit from his 11-year-old daughter, he is forced to reexamine his life.

The filmmaker, who said she has been looking to make “an intimate story set in contemporary Los Angeles,” received permission to shoot at the hotel, which has become notorious in recent years as a popular address for tabloid-friendly celebs. Film will lense in L.A. and Italy in June and July.

Project reunites Coppola with the film company with which she made the critical darling and box office hit “Lost in Translation.”

“‘Lost in Translation’ remains among Focus’ most beloved movies, so we have long looked forward to making another picture with Sofia,” Focus CEO James Schamus said. “‘Somewhere’ will have all the witty, moving and empathetic qualities that characterize all her work.”

[From Variety]

The Chateau Marmont has been a favorite hideaway for celebrities from Marilyn Monroe to Lindsay Lohan (oh God, note that comparison again), so it’s appropriate that it will be the setting for a movie about Hollywood excess. Sofia has a talent for films that are touching without being trite, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how she pulls it off in this particular venue. I wonder what “bad-boy actor” Dorff’s character is modeled after - perhaps Robert Downey, Jr. in his earlier years? It also looks like Elle Fanning, whose most recent project was playing the young Daisy in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, will follow in her older sister’s footsteps and sink her teeth into meatier, more serious, parts.

Here’s Sofia Coppola at Paris Spring fashion week last year. Images thanks to WENN.com .