‘The Mighty Boosh’ Helmer Paul King To Direct ‘Peter Pan In Scarlet’
It’s fair to say that, when we were 17, we were nowhere near as busy as Dakota Fanning is. The actress, a veteran of over a decade of film work, will next be seen reprising her evil turn in “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn,” is currently filming “The Motel Life” with Emile Hirsch, and has many, many other projects circulating, including a turn as Princess Margaret in royal rom-com “Girl’s Night Out,” and as announced last week, the coming-of-age tale “Very Good Girls” opposite the next big thing, Elizabeth Olsen. And for yet another of her percolating projects, she’s just landed some company.
Screen Daily report that among various projects that BBC Films unveiled as part of the 2011/2012 slate, one is “Now Is Good,” a drama about a girl dying of leukemia who puts together a list of what she wants to achieve before she dies, the top choice being to lose her virginity. Fanning’s been attached to the film since last year, and it was reported about six months ago that Naomi Watts was in talks to join her.
It looks like Watts has fallen off, which is a shame, but some very strong replacements seem to have been found: Olivia Williams, Paddy Considine and Jeremy Irvine, the young star of Steven Spielberg‘s upcoming “War Horse,” have all signed on to the project. There’s no immediate word as to who each actor would play, but we assume that Williams has taken over from Watts in a part we imagine to be Fanning’s mother, with Considine possibly as her father, and Irvine as a potential paramour?
Ol Parker, director of the decent-enough lesbian rom-com “Imagine Me & You” (and Mr. Thandie Newton), is writing and directing, from Jenny Downham‘s novel “Before I Die.” The script made the 2009 Brit List, so we’re expecting some good things, and the cast, or at least the excellent Williams and Considine, are promising. No exact word on when filming will begin, but with four principles in place, we assume it’ll be soon.
As for the company’s other projects, the most high-profile seems to be “Peter Pan in Scarlet,” an adaptation of the authorized sequel to J.M. Barrie‘s classic tale, which will be written and directed by Paul King, veteran of TV comedies like “The Mighty Boosh” as well as the flawed but interesting feature “Bunny and the Bull.” Charles and Tom Guard, directors of the Elizabeth Banks/Emily Browning horror flick “The Uninvited,” will helm an adaptation of the classic children’s novel “Swallows & Amazons”
Tom Bradby, writer of the James Marsh IRA thriller “Shadow Dancer” (which the company is also behind) is penning a remake of the thriller “Defence of the Realm,” which starred Gabriel Byrne and Denholm Elliot, while documentarian Morgan Matthews will direct a fictional version of his 2005 “Beautiful Young Minds,” about a group of students heading to the International Mathematics Olympiad. The new version is written by playwright James Graham and has been retitled “The X and Y Factor.” Not a bad slate, all in all.