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3/10/14: The National (by S N M Abdi)
See-Saw Films, the makers of The King’s Speech (2010), have bought the movie rights to Saroo Brierley’s A Long Way Home. Brierley, who has been appointed a consultant for the film project, says the star-studded film will be out in 2015. See-Saw’s Australian partner is Sunstar Entertainment.
“I’m a little humbled that my story is being made into a film and I know it is in great hands. Garth Davis is the director – his mini-series Top of the Lake was released last year and picked up nine Emmy nominations. The name of the scriptwriter can’t be revealed at this stage but the first draft is expected to be ready in a couple of months. The cast will be finalised by June,” says Brierley, adding that Colin Firth and Cate Blanchett are being considered for the roles of his foster parents John and Sue Brierley, while Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire (2008) is being favoured for the title role. Suraj Sharma, the star of Life of Pi (2012), might play the young Saroo. Plans include filming in Hobart, Tasmania and Canberra, Australia; and Kolkata and Khandwa in India.
Preorder in US from amazon (book)
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(no Kindle edition available yet)11/20/13: indiewire (by Kevin Jagernauth)
Colin Firth will lead the adaptation of the 1976 novel "Le Petit Bleu de la Côte Ouest," know henceforth as "Three To Kill," with Christopher McQuarrie set to direct. The lean mean tale will follow a businessman who is hunted by two sociopaths after witnessing a murder.
Howard Rodman ("Savage Grace," "August") will pen the script and while this sounds like a pretty nifty, gritty little thriller, it's probably a long way off. Why? A little movie called "Mission: Impossible 5" which McQuarrie is directing next for release on Christmas Day 2015.
11/21/13: deadline.com (by Mke Fleming)
Andrew Lauren Productions has committed to finance Three To Kill, an adaptation of the novel by French author Jean-Patrick Manchette. Christopher McQuarrie has signed on to direct (is currently preparing to film Mission Impossible 5, so this one is a long way off) and Colin Firth will star. Howard Rodman will write the script...
Pic is a thriller set on the coast of France and is summarized as follows:
Businessman Georges Gerfaut witnesses a murder-and is pursued by the killers. His conventional life knocked off the rails, Gerfaut turns the tables and sets out to track down his pursuers. Along the way, he learns a thing or two about himself.... Manchette—masterful stylist, ironist, and social critic—limns the cramped lives of professionals in a neo-conservative world.
Order translated book from amazon or amazon uk (no Kindle editions)
3/14/14: The Tracking Board (by Mac Maclamore)
Scott Z. Burns has circled back to direct StudioCanal’s upcoming open sea drama DEEP WATER. The project, which Burns originally wrote in 2012, had previously been next in line for director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, but is now being prepped to be Burns’ second feature film as a director following the 2007 film “PU-239″. Burns had expressed interest in directing from the beginning, but it wasn’t until late 2013 when Colin Firth and Kate Winslet boarded the project, and Inarritu departed, that the stars all seemed to align.
10/31/13: The Dailly Mail (by Baz Bamigboye)
Colin Firth and Kate Winslet are in very early discussions about starring in a film based on an infamous yacht-racing cheat whose misadventure on the high seas more than four decades ago still haunts his family.
The actors, both Oscar winners, have read a screenplay by Scott Burns about how Donald Crowhurst duped his family, race organisers and the public into believing that he had spent 240 days circumnavigating the globe in a prestigious single-handed, non-stop odyssey. Firth would portray Crowhurst, with Winslet playing his wife, Clare—who was known at the time as the ‘sea widow’.
Crowhurst set out in 1968 and was expected to return home the following year after the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race....Of the nine competitors in the race, Crowhurst was the worst equipped and the least qualified. His trimaran, Teignmouth Electron, was slow, and then it sprung a leak....He was so far behind the others that he set in motion a plan to deceive the world by falsifying his locations on the ship-to-shore messages sent from his Marconi radio...Crowhurst slowly went mad, trying to keep up with his deceptions about his whereabouts. It’s a fascinating story, and was massive at the time.
Producers at Blueprint Pictures refused to comment last night, but I understand that if they can secure agreement from the two leading actors, the movie could possibly shoot later next year or early in 2015...
11/16/13: whatculture.com (by Oscar Harding)
In an interview with Bitesize Networks producer Gene Kirkwood, he mentions that the project is still alive and in development: "I’m doing a movie about Noel Coward in Vegas with Colin Firth, Mad Dogs and Englishmen."
5/19/12: deadline.com (by Nancy Tartaglione)
Tthe screenplay, by Willy Holtzman, sees the quintessential Englishman invited to perform a cabaret act in the Inn after Liberace takes a spill and has to cancel. Owing the UK government a fair bit in taxes, Coward accepts the $30,000 offer. The story chronicles the two-week engagement and Coward’s relationship with his agent and the piano teacher who becomes his accompaniest.
5/19/12: The Hollywood Reporter (by Georg Szalai)
Colin Firth has signed up to star as Noel Coward in BiteSize Entertainment’s dramedy Mad Dogs and Englishmen, the story of Coward’s two weeks at The Desert Inn in Las Vegas in 1955. Willy Holtzman is writing the screenplay.
There is no start date set for the production, which is currently looking to select a director.
7/10/13: The Echo
Colin Firth rumoured to play Michael Woodford, the man who tackled corruption when he was appointed boss of giant Japanese corporation, Olympus. His memoir, called Exposure, and published last year, is now set to be made into a movie after Ink Factory Films, based in London and Hollywood, snapped up the film rights.
Buy Woodford's book at amazon
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version 5/17/14: Variety (by Leo Barraclough)
Hugh Dancy, BBC Films and Lionsgate U.K. have boarded Rupert Everett’s directorial debut, as well as Colin's production company. Dancy will play Robbie Ross, Wilde’s best friend and the focus of the poet’s unrequited love.
Principal photography starts in October at the Bavaria Film Studios in Munich, and on locations in Italy, Belgium, France and the U.K.
5/12/12: The Hollywood Reporter (by Scott Roxborough)
Rupert Everett has written the script and will direct a film about Oscar Wilde's final days. Everett will star as Wilde and Colin Firth is to play his friend and confidant Reginald "Reggie" Turner. Emily Watson, Tom Wilkinson and Edward Fox are also attached.
Shooting is planned for Summer 2013. Germany’s cine plus and Bavaria Pictures, Brit production company Robert Fox and Bavaria Media Italia will produce. Concorde will release the film in Germany.
10/13/11: AFP
The film focuses on the life of the flamboyant 19th century Irish poet and writer in Paris when he went into exile after leaving prison. It will take place in Naples, Paris, London and the north of France.
He said he had now found producers and hoped to make the film next year.
10/1709: The Observer (by Jason Solomons)
I hear Rupert Everett has written a brilliant script about the last days of Oscar Wilde in Paris. His friend Colin Firth says it's one of the wittiest and most moving he's ever read, much the same qualities that attracted him to his current starring role, in Tom Ford's warmly received film A Single Man.
8/0212: The Hollywood Reporter (by Borys Kit)
The Twilight star's involvement is only an attachment at this point because the project is not financed and has no start date. Sources say financing likely will hinge on the casting of the male lead. Oscar winner Colin Firth was attached to the part at one point, but that is no longer the case, according to sources.
8/02/12: Washington Post Celebritology (by Jen Chaney)
But a source close to the production reports that Stewart’s casting is premature, issuing the following statement: “While it’s exciting to see all the interest the project is generating, the film is still in the pre-production process and no offers to cast have been made as of yet.”
Stewart’s agent, Ken Kaplan, echoed the sentiments in that statement via e-mail tonight. “This movie is at a very early stage,” he wrote. “It is unfinanced and while Kristen is ‘attached’ to play the role, there is no guarantee that, if the movie gets made, she will actually do the role. All of the reporting on this is extremely premature.”
In other words, Stewart may still star in “Lie Down in Darkness,” but it’s not close to a done deal yet.
8/2/12: Vulture (by Claude Brodesser-Akner)
Exclusive: Kristen Stewart has landed the lead role of Peyton Loftis in this as-yet unfinanced indie production to be directed by Scott Cooper. Darkness has been in development for years by producer Jeff Sharp.
Set in genteel 1950s Virginia, Peyton is a member of a dysfunctional and disintegrating family, and is constantly compared to her crippled sister, Maudie. Her intense physical beauty makes her the object of her frigid mother’s jealous hatred and the target of her father’s incestuous, alcoholic lust.
2/02/11: The Tracking Board
Colin Firth in talks for Lie Down in Darkness. Many unconfirmed reports that he and Daniel Day-Lewis are "vying" for the role.
6/18/12: NY Post Page Six (by Emily Smith)
Buzz is building over who will take on the role that won Omar Sy the French equivalent of a Best Actor Oscar. We hear stars circling the role in the Weinstein Co. film include Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx and Idris Elba from “The Wire.” Sources say “Lawless” star Jessica Chastain and Michelle Williams of “My Week With Marilyn” are in the mix for the female lead.
3/29/12: Variety (by Jeff Sneider and Rachel Abrams)
"Bridesmaids" helmer Paul Feig is in early negotiations to direct and Colin Firth is in early talks to star in "Untouchable," The Weinstein Company's English-language remake of Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache's French box office hit "The Intouchables."
While there's no script yet, Feig has an offer to tackle the potential awards contender, while Firth has met on the project and is circling to land the coveted lead role. TWC is expected to hire a writer shortly.
"Intouchables" producer Nicolas Duval-Adassovsky will return for the remake, which is eyeing a fall start date.
6/19/12: Mumbai Mirror (by Subhash K Jha)
Gurinder Chadha is all set to begin shooting her next, a film on partition, in Delhi-Jodhpur in October this year. The film revolves round Lord Mountbatten, and Colin Firth or Michael Fassbender are being considered for the role. The director said, "this is my biggest challenge till date. I've been working on my partition film for some time now. The central character is Mountbatten. The movie is set in January 1947, when Mountbatten was asked to oversee India, and it ends in August 1947 so it's a brief time span. But it's a huge canvas requiring loads of research and scores of characters. I've spoken to some people including Naseer and Saif. Nehru's role is a cameo, so I wonder if Saif will be willing to do it. And yes, I want my Bhaji on the Beach actress Zohra Sehgal to be part of the film."
Chadha has acquired the necessary permissions to shoot everywhere in India, including Rashtrapati Bhavan, and expects to start lensing in October.
Buy book at amazon.com or amazon uk
7/2/13: New York Post (by Michael Riedel)
"Hathaway and Firth can’t commit to more than six months, so the Nederlanders have had to look elsewhere." Read more here
2/20/13: USA Today (by Elysa Gardner)
In conjunction with the release of his new book, Clive Davis stated that he is planning to mount a Broadway revival of My Fair Lady with Anne Hathaway and Colin Firth, now that the movie has fallen through.
This project will involve theater veterans Roger Berlind, Scott Landis and the Nederlander Organization, and Davis' top choice for a director is Bartlett Sher, the Tony Award winner whose Broadway credits include acclaimed revivals of such American classics as South Pacific, Joe Turner's Come and Gone and, this season, Golden Boy.
8/21/11: The Telegraph (by Richard Egan)
Mandrake hears that the actor [Colin Firth] has told Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Duncan Kenworthy that he will play Professor Henry Higgins to Carey Mulligan’s Eliza Doolittle in their remake of My Fair Lady. “He is keen,” says an associate.
The script for the musical has been written by Emma Thompson. As with Firth’s role in The King’s Speech, his part was offered, but rejected, by Hugh Grant.
Kenworthy is coy. “It’s in the planning stages, so it’s not the time to talk about casting,” he tells me. Keira Knightley took singing lessons to play Eliza before Mulligan was cast.
***********
This project has been under development for several years, with nothing certain except that Emma Thompson really wanted someone named Hugh (Laurie and then Grant) to play Henry Higgins and she pronounced 'Audrey Hepburn...twee, mumsy and really couldn't act'. The highly publicized power struggles and personnel changes have played out more like an episode of the miniseries Rome. I'll attempt to summarize.
With the project's first director (Danny Boyle) came Keira Knightley (really is she any better than the "twee" Audrey Hepburn?). While Emma Thompson told anyone and everyone that she wanted Hugh Grant for Higgins, apparently the director wanted Daniel Day-Lewis but could not tempt him (I always thought he had good judgment). Exit KK. Then Working Title snagged John Madden (director of Shakespeare in Love) and Carey Mulligan. Other names bandied about have been director Joe Wright, Daniel Craig, Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, Gemma Arterton and Emily Blunt. From all printed reports, John Madden took issue with the possibility that Grant might be his leading man and departed for awhile. Evidently, Colin is an acceptable compromise.
9/12/11: Bleeding Cool (by Brendon Connelly)
The Daily Mail reported last week that Gary Oldman was looking to get back in the director’s chair for an undisclosed remake and that Colin Firth was going to take a role....Here’s the quote from Oldman: "I think I’m gonna do something with Colin Firth. It was something I’d been thinking about for a while, I can’t say what it is, but it’s a remake, and when I worked with Colin I thought: here’s the guy to do it with."
Bleeding Cool’s very own Hannah Shaw Williams has just been speaking to Colin...She asked about the Oldman project, and Firth was quick to point out how the Mail had gotten things wrong. "Slight misreporting on that one...We do want to work together though I don’t think we’re quite ready to say what it is, but if it does go forward then we’ll let everyone know about it...It’s not a directing job on his part, it’s something for us both to act in. He directed one film brilliantly and I’d love to work with him in that capacity but this is to act together."
Joe Dante has revealed that he and Colin Firth have teamed up to make a biopic about legendary B-movie director Roger Corman. Dante, who began his movie career working with Corman, said that his comedy will be based around the making of Corman's 1967 drama The Trip.
"Roger's a great guy. I have a project about him, a movie called The Man With The Kaleidoscope Eyes about Roger Corman making The Trip," written by Jack Nicholson about a TV commercials director (Peter Fonda) who takes LSD while in the midst of a divorce. Corman, Nicholson, Fonda and co-star Dennis Hopper famously all took the drug in preparation for the movie. The Trip was a precursor to Hopper's 1969's counterculture classic Easy Rider, which featured Fonda and Nicholson in starring roles.
On casting the cult director, Dante added: "Colin Firth wants to play Roger, so we're looking around for funding."
9/29: The Sunday Times (by Eleanor Mills)
Twittersphere hates me. Tsunami of outrage that gaggle of journos revealed Mark died five years ago. Is my fault? Expect should have tweeted when it happened but was v.v. busy. Needed time for self, consulting with mystic healer and shopping for somber, but fabulous, black wardrobe not made by slave labour in Bangladeshi sweatshop or similar.
Am I expected to jump onto funeral pyre as in Merchant-Ivory film? Shazzer adamantly says no. Jude noncommittal. Surely world must view with saintly tolerance and sympathy like newborn pope (forgot name and number) from sexy s. American country (also forgot which).
Ooof! Number of followers has doubled. Surely must mean internet world feels my pain and is rooting me on.
5/28/13: The Today Show
Announced exclusive on book's title which is to be Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. Preorder the US book (released Oct 15th) and the Kindle edition (October 29th download). Preorder the UK book (released Oct 10th); no UK Kindle link as of yet.
6/22/12: Entertainmentwise.com (by Mark Worgan)
Sally Phillips, who played Shazzer, said: "It was due to shoot in August, then I was told it was delayed till September, then I was told it was delayed till October and I was having a baby at the end of October, so I was nervous, and then they said don't worry it's starting in November and I was like still, for me that was worse because either I'm going to be 9 months pregnant, or I'm just going to be fat. Either of those are bad, and then it was postponed till January, and then we had a call saying it was postponed indefinitely."
When asked about her thoughts on another film she said: "Yeah I am excited about it, I get on very well, an I think the people who play the friends in those films have the best time." Phillips added: "you can be any weight, you just sit in your caravan and I just talk to James Callis (Tom) who's one of the...funniest men alive, just sit and talk to him while they film all the difficult stuff and occasionally they just sort of wheel us in to look surprised. So I love doing it, and I'd love to do another one, but soon please because I'm ageing quite a lot faster than Renee."
2/04/12: Script problems cause delays
With the internet buzzing about Hugh Grant's refusal to start work on the film this month, Working Title Films took the unprecedented step of issuing a press release to say script issues were being addressed (please, sirs, no Richard Curtis!) and that the start would likely be pushed back to the fall of 2012. (Take your time....another decade or two?)
BTW, Hugh isn't taking the entire blame for the delay. The next day, his rep said: “Hugh is keen that Bridget Jones 3 happens, but Renee [Zellweger], Colin [Firth] and he all have some issue with the present script. They are hoping to help work them out.” Right...
10/05/11: Deadline.com (by Mike Fleming)
Universal Pictures and Working Title Films will need a new director for Bridget Jones 3, and I hear they want a Brit. Paul Feig has withdrawn after developing the most recent draft of the script with the intention to direct. I’m told that both sides agreed it didn’t work out and that maybe this is just a quintessential British comedy that needs a British sensibility. They will set a director soon as they are still slated to start production in January, with Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant all eager to return.
5/27/11: Hollywoodcrush (by Amy Wilkinson)
Helen is working on a third Bridget novel and has turned to an unlikely source for inspiration: Twitter.
A self-professed Twitter-avoider, Helen finally joined the social networking site as part of a Comic Relief benefit in which celebrities' first follows were auctioned off to the highest bidder. Helen quickly realized, though, that 140-word missives were a great writing exercise while penning her latest tome.
"I discovered that through doing Twitter—I was a bit blocked with the book and it just put me back in touch with who the readers are," Helen told us from her home in London. "You can sort of talk to people and see them react to your stuff."
As for how all of these tweets will be integrated into her latest work, Helen isn't sure of the specifics, but she did say that recurring themes from her tweets will likely seep into her novel. "To give an example, I've got a thing going with technology," she said. "She's always getting fed up with trying to operate the remote control or the password or how to turn on the tap. She goes to the restaurant bathroom and feels like she's spending three days waving her hands in front of toilets and wash basins and just can't figure out how to turn the tap on. It's all very modern. So I think things like that are sort of themes.
"And I'm also sort of trying to work a plot out with Mark on there, as well," she continued. "But it's quite hard because you can't get that much dialogue. But little bits of dialogue come up. Like, there's a thing where he's in Libya at the moment, and she got it mixed up with Liberia. Those you can see you can work into a bigger conversation."
The exact plot of the novel is still coming together, but Helen said that it will likely involve Bridget "struggling with the baby thing," and that Mark will be her main love interest (though Daniel will be loitering about as usual).
"It's hard to pull these things together," she said of the long-gestating film. "There are so many people involved. I think they are sort of moving towards it now. It's definitely taking shape now, and it would be so much fun if they all came back and did it. You know, Colin has won an Oscar now. No pressure or anything."
Read full article here
5/26/11: E! Online (by Marc Malkin)
Per Helen Fielding, a third Bridget Jones book and movie are still in the works. The author has been tweeting as her literary alter ego (@bridgetjoneshf) as well as @markdarcylegal, @danielcleaverxx and @richardfinch.
"I've been working on it," Fielding tells me from her home in London. "You know, the challenge is to make it really good, because I've waited a long time before doing anything else with Bridget...I want it to be quite honest and mean something and be really good and funny."
Fielding chooses her words quite carefully when I ask if Zellweger should reprise the role. "These are all very delicate areas...which I really mustn't talk about," she said. "But I think all the actors playing the parts in the movies were fantastic and it would be wonderful if they would again. But they've all done very well and they don't need to do another film, so it would have to be a really good script for them to want to do it."
Fielding continues to work on a staged musical adaptation of Bridget with Brit songstress Lily Allen. "We have done one workshop," she said. "It takes a long time for a musical. But it's fun and joyful, and I think with Lily's songs it's a perfect marriage."
Read full article here
5/20/11: Press Association
Hugh Grant and Oscar winner Colin Firth reignited their on-screen rivalry to fuel a bidding war at a charity auction for a walk-on part in the next movie. Their competing bids helped to push the price of the part up to £55,000, paid by an unnamed bidder.
Hugh (who was not present) put in an opening bid for £10,000 prior to the auction, while Colin, who arrived straight from shooting new film Gambit, bid in person against Hugh on the phone, until the winning price was reached.
The auction was to raise money for broadcaster Mariella Frostrup's new GREAT Initiative, which she launched with a glamorous party and dinner at the Corinthia Hotel London.
3/2/11: Londoner's Diary (The Evening Standard)
Bridget Jones opens up her diary again
Stock up on the Chardonnay — Bridget Jones is back. Her creator Helen Fielding has finally begun writing the third instalment of the best-selling diaries. Fielding read three pages of new Bridget Jones material at Damian Barr’s Literary Salon at Shoreditch House last night, to hoots of mirth from the audience, and confirmed that, 10 years after The Edge of Reason, the third book was under way. There has been mounting speculation that a third film is also in the works, with reports that Renée Zellweger, who played the lead, would sign up only if she didn’t have to pile on the pounds. But in November the actress said there couldn’t be another movie without the book first. Fielding confirms that there have also been discussions about the next film. “I will be working on both the book and the film but I don’t know if they are the same thing yet. It’s not been decided.” One of the themes, said Fielding, will be Bridget having a mid-thirties baby crisis. Her first two books, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, sold 15 million copies between them, and the two films took more than £300 million at the box office. Whether Hugh Grant will reprise his role as the dastardly Daniel Cleaver is uncertain but Colin Firth seems quite amenable to a return as Mark Darcy. “I think the idea of Mark and Daniel and Bridget in advanced stages of deterioration could be quite fun,” Firth told the BBC last month. “We’re making a comedy, after all.”
7/15/09: Working Title has only confirmed that the project is in development, "in the very early stages." There are no actors attached and no director or writer.
7/14/09: Variety (by Ali Jaafar)
It is rumored that Working Title is developing a third installment of the "Bridget Jones" series starring Renee Zellweger.
The untitled [ha!] third "Bridget Jones" pic, which is still in its early stages and probably won't go into production until the end of next year, will see Zellweger reprise her role as a British publishing exec struggling to find love. It will likely be based on the weekly columns author Helen Fielding wrote in 2005 for British newspaper the Independent in which Bridget, now in her 40s, attempts to have a baby before it's too late.
Working Title co-toppers Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan have yet to set a writer or director.
Surfaced at the 2002 American Film Market, a romantic comedy in which Shakespeare’s ghost meddles in the life of a writer, his porn-star ex-wife, his teenage son and his unpredicatable new lover in this romantic comedy.
In January 2009, Colin Firth and Mick Jagger's names were not only attached to this project but Jagger's company was listed as a producer.
