At the end of each year, audiences are introduced to films that studios believe will be their big awards season favorites. This is also the time of year when studios buy up the rights and begin producing their films for next year’s awards. And thus, Deadline reports that Bleecker Street has acquired the rights to the film “The Man Who Invented Christmas,” and the studio is hoping that this film will be awards bait in 2017.
“The Man Who Created Christmas” is based on the 2008 novel of the same name and tells the story of Charles Dickens as he writes and publishes “A Christmas Carol” while dealing with life’s struggles. Dan Stevens and Christopher Plummer are attached to star with Stevens portraying the famed writer, with Bharat Nalluri (“Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day“) and Susan Coyne (“Mozart in the Jungle“) directing and writing respectively. Here’s the book synopsis:
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As uplifting as the tale of Scrooge itself, this is the story of how one writer and one book revived the signal holiday of the Western world.
Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist.
The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution. It was a harsh and dreary age, in desperate need of spiritual renewal, ready to embrace a book that ended with blessings for one and all.
This year, Bleecker Street is headed into the awards season with “Captain Fantastic,” “Eye in the Sky,” and “Denial,” and while the prospects are likely low on those films going the distance, “The Man Who Created Christmas” could make its mark next year. Filming kicks off in December.