Having proved his status again as a worldwide draw even without mastering American auds, \u201cMr. Bean\u2019s Holiday\u201d star Rowan Atkinson is set to reunite with his \u201cJohnny English\u201d director Peter Howitt for a version of Charles Dickens\u2019 \u201cDavid Copperfield.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHoliday\u201d has made $157 million overseas but won\u2019t open in the U.S. until Aug. 31.<\/p>\n
The $30 million \u201cCopperfield\u201d project is being lined up to shoot in early 2008. Howitt and his producing partner Richard Johns are making the film through their production company Flaming Pie Films.<\/p>\n
Simon Crowe\u2019s financing and sales company Velvet Octopus will start pre-sales at the Cannes market this month. The U.K. Film Council\u2019s Premiere Fund is also lining up to back the project.<\/p>\n
In \u201cCopperfield,\u201d Atkinson will play Mr. Micawber, Copperfield\u2019s landlord and one of Dickens\u2019 most famous comic characters, eternally and irrationally optimistic as he slides toward financial ruin.<\/p>\n
Micawber was played by W.C. Fields in George Cukor\u2019s 1935 movie. That pic was the last bigscreen adaptation of the novel, although it has been made numerous times since for TV.<\/p>\n
Howitt, who co-wrote the \u201cCopperfield\u201d script with Douglas McFerran, originally developed the project under his first-look deal with Miramax and Intermedia just after his debut hit with \u201cSliding Doors\u201d in 1998. It subsequently came back to him in turnaround.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a very fresh adaptation of the novel, not the chocolate-boxy, stolid version of Dickens that we are used to,\u201d Johns said. \u201cIt won\u2019t be mannered or reverential. With Dickens, filmmakers have been trapped in this place where you have caricatured characters, but Peter wants to deal with them like real people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howitt has just finished shooting \u201cDangerous Parking,\u201d a low-budget Brit comedy financed by the cast, crew and private investors. Velvet Octopus is handling international sales for the movie, which will premiere at the London U.K. Film Focus in June.<\/p>\n
source: http:\/\/www.variety.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Having proved his status again as a worldwide draw even without mastering American auds, \u201cMr. Bean\u2019s Holiday\u201d star Rowan Atkinson is set to reunite with his \u201cJohnny English\u201d director Peter Howitt for a version of Charles Dickens\u2019 \u201cDavid Copperfield.\u201d \u201cHoliday\u201d has made $157 million overseas but won\u2019t open in the U.S. until Aug. 31. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cast-crew"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p54TBn-8D","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":628,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=628","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":0},"title":"Blackadder has cunning plans for the dome","author":"admin","date":"17 January 1999","format":false,"excerpt":"Article printed in the Sunday Times 17th January 1999 by Nicholas Hellen and Tim Tezisler THE comedian Rowan Atkinson, who played the dastardly television character Edmund Blackadder, has hatched his most cunning plan: to rewrite British history for an official film marking the year 2000 that will be shown at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Specials"","block_context":{"text":"Specials","link":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":641,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=641","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":1},"title":"Blackadder – The Movie official?","author":"admin","date":"29 July 1997","format":false,"excerpt":"Evening Standard (West End final ed.)- 29th July 1997 Blackadder set for film role in the millennium By Tim Cooper Rowan Atkinson is set to follow his Mr. Bean film by bringing Blackadder to the big screen in a special new \u201cmovie for the millennium\u201d. The comedy star, whose Bean\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Specials"","block_context":{"text":"Specials","link":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":415,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=415","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":2},"title":"Blackadder Goes Forth to the West End","author":"admin","date":"28 December 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A week in the life of Rowan Atkinson. On Christmas Day, he and his wife Sunetra slipped quietly into a school in Kennington, south London, to bring some cheer to 2,000 troubled children brought together by the charity Kids Company. The comedian\u2019s eyes welled up with tears, said one witness.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cast & Crew"","block_context":{"text":"Cast & Crew","link":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":503,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=503","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":3},"title":"Blackadder star Rowan Atkinson to star as Fagin in the West End","author":"admin","date":"26 March 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Rowan Atkinson is to star as Fagin in the forthcoming West End stage production of Oliver! The cast will also include the winners of the BBC show I\u2019d Do Anything - one actress will play Nancy and three boys will take turns to play the lead role. Blackadder star Atkinson,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cast & Crew"","block_context":{"text":"Cast & Crew","link":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":537,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=537","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":4},"title":"The Red Adder","author":"admin","date":"29 March 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi, all\u2026 With the Bean sequel opening in the UK this weekend, there\u2019s been lots of the usual puff stories in the British press concerning Rowan Atkinson. The only new Blackadder tidbit is in today\u2019s edition of the Sun. Atkinson brings up BA at one point, which I quote in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cast & Crew"","block_context":{"text":"Cast & Crew","link":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":958,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=958","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":5},"title":"Rowan takes the comedy proud crown","author":"admin","date":"11 December 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A new survey by British broadband supplier Plusnet has revealed that 44% of us Brits are most proud of Mr. Blackadder himself Rowan Atkinson (when polled against other great British comedic greats). When asked to name the comedian they were most proud of, Rowan came out tops, followed by Python\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cast & Crew"","block_context":{"text":"Cast & Crew","link":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}