Pattinson will star as Georges Duroy, an ambitious social climber who sleeps with and manipulates several wealthy women in Paris for his own gain.
Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Christina Ricci and Colm Meaney also star in the period drama, which is based on Guy de Maupassant's 1885 novel. The film will reportedly feature an orgy sequence in which Pattinson's character has sex with 40 different women.
Pattinson previously said of the movie: "There's a lot of sex. [The film] is like the complete antithesis of what you normally think period dramas are about.
"In Paris, everybody was just going nuts. It was like the 1980s. Sex was kind of a weapon and a tool, and it's odd."
Bel Ami opens in UK cinemas on March 2, 2012.
