JENNA COLEMAN TO LEAD
QUEEN 'VICTORIA' EPIC SERIES
Earlier this year I've announced that British ITV will prepare a new TV series on queen Victoria titled simply VICTORIA and now it has been confirmed that Jenna Coleman is to take the crown and play the lead role of the infamous enslaver and invader. The actress will leave DR WHO for this gig. The eight part historical series will revolve around the early life of the British monarch, from her ascension to the throne to her marriage to Prince Albert. The first episode, directed by Tom Vaughan, will be 90 minutes long! Since the filming starts next month in Northern England, expect new cast names announced here as we get the info! The series comes from POLDARK team.
BRYAN SINGER TO HELM
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
Here's something for all of you fans of adventure movies: X-MEN's
Bryan Singer, who has, believe it or not, just turned 50 yesterday, has
announced that his next movie project will be the big screen adaptation
of Jules Verne's 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA! He has already finished
the script saying he has wanted to retell jt since childhood and
promising that it will be an epic and emotional adventure for all ages!
As you know, famous classic follows brave Captain Nemo and his mighty
submarine Nautilus on their underwater adventures. Singer's X MEN:
APOCALYPSE is ready to hit cinemas in May next year.
Here's something for all of you fans of adventure movies: X-MEN's
Bryan Singer, who has, believe it or not, just turned 50 yesterday, has
announced that his next movie project will be the big screen adaptation
of Jules Verne's 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA! He has already finished
the script saying he has wanted to retell jt since childhood and
promising that it will be an epic and emotional adventure for all ages!
As you know, famous classic follows brave Captain Nemo and his mighty
submarine Nautilus on their underwater adventures. Singer's X MEN:
APOCALYPSE is ready to hit cinemas in May next year.
'TUTANKHAMUN' EPIC TV SERIES
MAX IRONS & SAM NEILL CAST
Speaking of ITV's historical series, another one I've recently announced, epic adventure TUTAN- KHAMUN has cast Max Irons and Sam Neill under Peter Webber's helm! Max Irons 
will play Howard Carter who became an iconic figure and an unlikely hero. The story unfolds from 1905 when Carter, an eminent British archaeologist, is leading an expedition only to have his license to dig revoked by Cairo’s Antiquities Service. Carter spends years living rough and resorting to selling previously discovered archaeological relics. A chance meeting with British aristocrat eccentric Lord Carnarvon (Sam Neill), brings a change of fortunes as the enthusiastic amateur needs an experienced archaeologist to help him with a series of random excavations. Carter and Carnarvon begin the most unlikely friendship, in spite of their differences of background and character. After years of searching for the tomb, Carter and Carnarvon successfully discover the last resting place of the boy-king TUTANKHMAUN in 1921 against all odds and at great personal expense.
will play Howard Carter who became an iconic figure and an unlikely hero. The story unfolds from 1905 when Carter, an eminent British archaeologist, is leading an expedition only to have his license to dig revoked by Cairo’s Antiquities Service. Carter spends years living rough and resorting to selling previously discovered archaeological relics. A chance meeting with British aristocrat eccentric Lord Carnarvon (Sam Neill), brings a change of fortunes as the enthusiastic amateur needs an experienced archaeologist to help him with a series of random excavations. Carter and Carnarvon begin the most unlikely friendship, in spite of their differences of background and character. After years of searching for the tomb, Carter and Carnarvon successfully discover the last resting place of the boy-king TUTANKHMAUN in 1921 against all odds and at great personal expense.
I must let my sister know about the new Victoria mini-series. She loves all things Victorian.
ReplyDeleteI wonder who will play Albert
DeleteJenna Coleman sure is pretty! I'm sure she will make for a wonderful queen!
ReplyDeleteYep, the boys will like her a lot... not that the real queen was any wonderful... that ebil invader and ruthless enslaver.... the world is still coping with the effects of her imperialism
DeleteBryan Singer destroyed Superman. As a result, there was no sequel and we're now stuck with that horribly bleak reboot that has nothng to do with what Supe us all about. I miss Christopher Reeve.
ReplyDeletebut I did like his JACK THE GIANT SLAYER... albeit it wasn't a hit.. I still liked it... and I have hots for some Singer :)
DeleteSounds good. The young actor Irons makes a super choice to catch followers galore female and male . No doubt Peter Webber and Guy Burt will deliver a memorable epic. . As for the publicity blurb it’s a promising start too - albeit the summary of Carter's fall is not without fault, moreover the two men knew of each other before 1905 - Carter was by then trading in selling art and robbed relics he'd picked up on various jobs, ancient sites and also selling drawings - including some of his own work. He was a very fine artist, draftsman and a talented excavator ( read grave robber ) and traded on and off the black market. Although he fell out of favour with authority - he never ever starved or was reduced to a beggar state as is implied - he'd been in Egypt for several years and although there were lean times he lived well enough and had several fingers in pies. Carnarvon always had an eye for a striking young man and a bargain buy and was flush with his wife Almina's Rothschild money. His lordship was exactly the punter that Carter wanted to attract and Carnarvon had others make purchases from Carter's legal and illegal caches. The destiny of the two men forming a partnership needed a go between, with Lord Cromer the gaffer at the Cairo Residency being the patsy, theirs was not a chance meeting but it was fated and encouraged by Almina to get Carnarvon out of her hair . The years that followed are otherwise neatly enough described in this piece. One looks forward to more on the series as 2015-6 unfolds.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to agree with you on Max Irons, but sadly I can't, Willie. He was so dreadful in RED RIDING HOOD, almost atrociously and also had an utter lack of expression in WHITE QUEEN... too teensy and too shallow in approach. But we do love Sam Neill!
DeleteAnd we do love Peter Webber, such a lovely gent, he even tweeted us once at Twitter.
You think they were lovers too? :)
I wonder if they will be shown as heroic in the series or as stealers and robbers, that they kinda were, yes?
Yes, Dez, one could use the tardy term of them being " an item"....but it was a little bit more complex than that - my various offerings on this trickyish subject are dotted around the internet, and in my publications.
ReplyDeleteI once had a tweet from Peter Webber too so he is in tune with the rainbow people.
It would be a shining example, as golden as the mask of the boy king, and an achievement in the historical perspective- post Downton Abbey- where fiction is accepted by the fans as fact if the writer Guy Burt even simply hints at this odd couple being close and intimate at times . It can be done in good taste for it was not a sordid matter - but secret- afterall it was illegal at the time – but both were as willing as Barkis.
Their affair explains as in any close human relationship their tiny tiffs and major fall outs.
Significantly in the end at their final blistering fall out when Carter ordered Carnarvon out of ' Castle Carter' ( the home built for Carter at Luxor using Bretby stone from Carnarvon's Derbyshire estate ) Carter told his master not to set foot in there ever again. This was a lamentable tragedy for Carter since at Carnarvon's death the two old buddies were not fully reconciled.
NB Carnarvon's last medical bulletins are contrived, he was constantly sedated, so there were no last farewells.
The latter is a poignant piece of the real life drama that would make a tear jerker if portrayed.
That all said about outing these men: I doubt that the plague of Downton Abbey fans ( who will be the target of the financial backers of this new King Tut series and their tap on raising the sales and advertising revenues for the show ) are quite ready for a gay man upstairs in real life Highclere, to match the odious downstairs valet in the fictitious Downton. Moreover the present Carnarvons would suffer cardiac arrest at any kind of actual portrayal of one of their number and visitor numbers ay Highclere would almost certainly be affected and the series condemned or crushed. The Carnarvons have the power of the Monarchy, the Papacy and the Mafia combined. So I rather think that there will be just more fiction , and the Carnarvon party line followed for this series.
Yes I agree there was a side to the sorties of Messrs Carnarvon and Carter that smacks of the plunders on the high seas by pirates like Drake or Raleigh or Henry Morgan and aristocratic opportunists like Elgin of the marbles fame.
All blessings to Hollywood Spy and visitors, Regards Will
Well, than that seems as the worst kind of power that they possess :)
DeleteThanks for dropping by, Sir Will!