25/10/2006

With Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman currently shooting The Other Boleyn Girl and David Cronenberg’s new film with Viggo Mortensen set to start shooting in London on November 19, BBC Films has a star-studded line-up of films in production and post-production.

The Other Boleyn Girl revolves around the ambitious Boleyn sisters, Mary (Scarlett Johansson) and Anne (Natalie Portman), who were rivals for the heart of England’s 16th-century King Henry VIII (Eric Bana). Television director Justin Chadwick makes his feature debut with a script written by Peter Morgan ( The Queen [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andy Harries
interview: Stephen Frears
film profile]). The film is produced by Ruby Films in co-production with BBC Films with co-financing from Sony Pictures and Focus Features.

In David Cronenberg’s (still untitled) new thriller, Mortensen plays a ruthless hitman for one of London’s mob-organised crime families who helps a young midwife (Naomi Watts) with evidence against the family stay alive. The film is being produced by Kudos Productions in co-production with BBC Films and co-financing from Focus Feature.

Two other BBC Films co-productions are in post-production: Gilliam Armstrong’s Death Defying Acts, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Guy Pearce, and The Allotment, a comedy set in Liverpool directed by Richard Laxton (Life & Lyrics) from a script by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Warp Films and Art in Action are producing in association with BBC Films, the UK Film Council and North West Vision. Pathé is handling UK distribution and world sales.

Other BBC Films making headlines are The History Boys, released ten days ago by 20th Century Fox (£800,000 gross in its opening weekend), and Red Road [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Andrea Arnold and Fast Food Nation [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Richard Linklater, currently screening at the London Film Festival ahead of their domestic release (respectively, October 27, Verve Pictures and early 2007, Tartan Films).

Lastly, Tom Vaughan’s Starter For Ten, in which a working-class youngster (James McAvoy) goes to an upper-class British university will be released through Icon on November 10.