11/02/2010

The Full Monty director Peter Cattaneo will direct the comedy What the Puck for Ealing Studios based on a script by Kinky Boots scribe Geoff Deane. The film, which shoots in Canada later this year, looks at a father and son who bond over ice hockey, hence the puckish title.

Ealing has also sold John Landis comedy Burke & Hare, currently shooting in the UK, to a raft of territories. The film stars Andy Serkis, Tom Wilkinson, Jessica Hynes, Tim Curry and Isla Fisher. Ealing has concluded deals with Entertainment Film Distributors (UK), La Fabrique de Films (France) and Odeon (Greece), besides other non-European territories.

The company has also sold Barnaby Thompson and Oliver Parker’s St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold, starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Gemma Arterton and David Tennant, to Scanbox for Scandinavia and to Daro for CIS.

Meanwhile, German production house Egoli Tossell Film (The Last Station [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) is teaming with Spanish company Morena Films (Cell 211 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daniel Monzón
film profile]) to bring British classic Ivanhoe, based on Sir Walter Scott’s timeless novel, back to the big screen. The £24m epic will be directed by British director Iain Softley (Inkheart [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) from a script by James Jacks, best known as producer of The Mummy series.

Another British classic, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, is being filmed yet again by Cary Fukunaga, who won global acclaim for Sin Nombre. There have been at least 21 previous film or TV adaptations of the gothic tale. This time around, it is a BBC Films/Focus Features/Ruby Films production with a strong cast including Michael Fassbender, Judi Dench, Jamie Bell, Mia Wasikowska, Sally Hawkins and Imogen Poots.