First Look at Saoirse Ronan in Hanna

At the age of 16 Saoirse Ronan has already been nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Atonement and played the lead character in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. I don’t know whether it’s because of her talent, luck, or both, but she’s landed herself another meaty role in Hanna as a teenage assassin.

USA Today were given the first official image from the film, which you can see above. Hanna is directed by Atonement director Joe Wright (I guess that explains Ronan’s casting) and also stars Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Hanna (Ronan) is a teenage girl. Uniquely, she has the strength, the stamina, and the smarts of a solider; these come from being raised by her father (Eric Bana), an ex-CIA man, in the wilds of Sweden. Living a life unlike any other teenager, her upbringing and training have been one and the same, all geared to making her the perfect assassin. The turning point in her adolescence is a sharp one; sent into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna journeys stealthily across Europe while eluding agents dispatched after her by a ruthless intelligence operative with secrets of her own (Cate Blanchett). As she nears her ultimate target, Hanna faces startling revelations about her existence and unexpected questions about her humanity.

Focus Features will be releasing the film sometime in 2011, so we can probably expect a trailer towards the end of the year. Hit-Girl recently showed that people are up for seeing young female assassins on the big screen, and it’ll be interesting to see how Hanna is received. It sounds as if the film will be a bit more serious, where as Kick-Ass took a more comedic approach to a young girl violently killing grown men.