By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled” Begins

Posted Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016 - Comments Off on Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled” Begins
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Production has begun in Louisiana on writer-director Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, which reteams the filmmaker with Focus Features. Focus holds worldwide rights to the film as part of the company’s renewed global initiative. Focus will release The Beguiled domestically in select cities on June 23, 2017 in the U.S., with an expansion on June 30, 2017; and Universal Pictures International (UPI) will distribute the film globally, beginning in the summer of 2017.

Ms. Coppola’s screenplay is an adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s novel of the same name. Golden Globe Award winner Colin Farrell (Focus’ In Bruges), Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman (The Hours), Emmy Award nominee Kirsten Dunst (making her fourth movie with Ms. Coppola), and Critics’ Choice Award nominee Elle Fanning (making her second movie with Ms. Coppola) lead the cast of The Beguiled.

The Beguiled unfolds in a girls’ school in the state of Virginia in 1864. As the Civil War rages, The Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies has been sheltered from the outside world— until the day a wounded Union soldier is discovered nearby and taken in.

Oona Laurence (who starred on Broadway in Matilda and on-screen in Pete’s Dragon, Bad Moms, and Southpaw) and Emma Howard (Transparent) have joined the cast with Angourie Rice (The Nice Guys) and Addison Riecke (The Thundermans).

Anne Ross is production designer on The Beguiled, marking her fifth collaboration with Ms. Coppola. The film’s costume designer is Stacey Battat, marking her fourth collaboration with Ms. Coppola. The director of photography on The Beguiled is Academy Award nominee Philippe Le Sourd (The Grandmaster), and the movie is being shot on 35mm film.

Ms. Coppola’s previous movies with Focus as writer/director and producer were Lost in Translation, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and wasadditionally nominated in the Best Picture and Best Director Oscar categories; andSomewhere, starring Ms. Fanning, which won the Golden Lion Award at the 2010 Venice International Film Festival.

Focus chairman Peter Kujawski commented, “It is personally and professionally a pleasure to be making a movie with Sofia Coppola again. The twisted turns of the story, combined with Sofia’s empathy for the characters being portrayed by these gifted actors, will keep audiences in suspense. Everyone at Focus is thrilled to be bringing The Beguiled to theaters next summer.”

Focus Features (www.focusfeatures.com) acquires and produces specialty films for the global market, and holds a library of iconic movies from fearless filmmakers. In addition toThe Beguiled, current and upcoming domestic releases from Focus include Kubo and the Two Strings, the new family event movie from animation studio LAIKA, directed by Travis Knight with a voice cast that includes Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara, George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Vaccaro, and Matthew McConaughey;Tom Ford’s romantic thriller Nocturnal Animals, starring Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Venice International Film Festival; the real-life story of heroism The Zookeeper’s Wife, directed by Niki Caro and starring Jessica Chastain; Colin Trevorrow’s The Book of Henry, starring Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, and Jacob Tremblay; the action spy thriller The Coldest City, directed by David Leitch and starring Charlize Theron and James McAvoy; Stephen Frears’ Victoria and Abdul, starring Dame Judi Dench as Queen Victoria; Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill; the untitled new film from Paul Thomas Anderson starring Daniel Day-Lewis; J.A. Bayona’s visually spectacular drama A Monster Calls, starring Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Lewis MacDougall, and Liam Neeson, which world-premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival; and Jeff Nichols’ Loving, based on the love story of Richard and Mildred Loving, portrayed by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, which world-premiered at the 2016 Cannes International Film Festival.

Focus Features and Universal Pictures are part of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. NBCUniversal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.

 

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

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~ David Simon