MICHAEL SOCHA, GEORGE MACKAY, TOM BURKE TO LEAD BBC'S GALLOWS POLE 18TH CENTURY TV SERIES! SEE NICHOLAS RALPH AS CHRONICLES OF NARNIA AUTHOR IN MOST RELUCTANT CONVERT TRAILER

  THE GALLOWS POLE SERIES 

BBC ANNOUNCES MAIN CAST

With the start of production, BBC and director Shane Meadows have also announced the lead cast for their new six part historical series THE GALLOWS POLE which will have a psychedelic soundtrack! Based on the novel of the same name by Benjamin Myers, it fictionalises the remarkable

Tom Burke, George Mackay, Michael Socha, Thomas Turgoose

true story of the rise and fall of David Hartley and the Cragg Vale Coiners. Set against the backdrop of the coming industrial revolution in 18th century Yorkshire, the compelling drama follows the enigmatic David Hartley, played by Michael Socha, as he assembles a gang of weavers and land-workers to

Anthony Welsh, Cara Theobold, Samuel Edward Cook

embark upon a revolutionary criminal enterprise that will capsize the economy and become the biggest fraud in British history. The cast will also include Thomas Turgoose, George MacKay, Tom Burke, Sophie McShera, Cara Theobold, Eve Burley, Nicole Barber Lane, Samuel Edward-Cook, Anthony Welsh, Joe Sproulle, Adam Fogerty and Fine Time Fontayne!

THE MOST RELUCTANT CONVERT

TRAILER WITH NICHOLAS RALPH

Speaking of period set projects, check out the trailer for a movie which will air only one day November 3rd in selected USA venues chronicling

The movie will be a one night cinema event

the life of The Chronicles of Narnia author C. S. Lewis. Directed by Norman Stone, it stars Max McLean, Nicholas Ralph and Eddie Ray Martin as the adult Lewis, young man Lewis, and childhood Lewis respectively. Spanning C.S. Lewis' bitter childhood, WWI and his life changing friendships at Oxford, THE MOST RELUCTANT CONVERT depicts the events that shaped Lewis' early life and journey from hard boiled atheism to prolific Christianity.. Also starring in the film are Tom Glenister as J. R. R. Tolkien, David Shields as Hugo Dyson, and Hubert Barton as Owen Barfield.

NETFLIX TO TURN NARNIA INTO EPIC FANTASY MOVIES AND SERIES! 1ST 'DICKINSON' 1800S SET COMEDY SERIES PHOTOS WITH HAILEE STEINFELD AS EMILY DICKINSON

  'CHRONICLES OF NARNIA'

TO BE ADAPTED  BY NETFLIX

Well we're getting Lord of the Rings, and Wheel of Time series at Amazon, His Dark Materials at BBC, Last Airbender at Netflix, so why not add  THE

Narnia has been translated into almost 50 languages

 CHRONICLES OF NARNIA to that list as well! Netflix is planning to turn C.S. Lewis' famous fantasy classic into new movies following four British children during World War II who escape into an alternate magical world. It has been announced that there might be both films and series made out of these novels at Netflix as there will be multiple productions. As you know, last decade Disney has already done three films set in Narnia. The books have been sold in more than 100 million copies around the world. They plan to use the advances in production technology for depicting fantastical creatures such as famous lion Aslan.

'DICKINSON' COMEDY SERIES

1ST HAILEE STEINFELD PHOTOS

Speaking of period set projects, check out the first photos from Apple's half hour 1800s set comedy series DICKINSON showing Hailee Steinfeld as the famous poet Emily Dickinson! The comedy series will audaciously explore the constraints of society, gender, and family from the perspective of a budding writer who doesn’t fit in to her own time through her imaginative point of view. You can see this from one of the photos in which she is dressed as a boy and in one where she is smoking a cigar outside her elite school for girls. The cast also includes Toby Huss as her father Edward Dickinson, Jane Krakowski as her mother, Anna Baryshnikov as her younger sister Lavinia, Ella Hunt as her best friend Sue Gilbert, and Adrian Blake Enscoe as Emily's brother Austin.

EWAN MCGREGOR IS CHRISTOPHER ROBIN IN LIVE ACTION WINNIE THE POOH MOVIE! 'INTERLUDE IN PRAGUE' MOZART TRAILER WITH JAMES PUREFOY, ANEURIN BARNARD! JOE JOHNSTON TO HELM 'NARNIA: SILVER CHAIR'!

EWAN MCGREGOR IS 

WINNIE THE POOH'S BEST FRIEND

As you know, Disney is currently in the mood of turning their animated classics into live action movies, they started it last year with Jungle Book, and will continue with Dumbo and Lion King and Mulan, but live action WINNIE THE POOH movie now has Ewan McGregor as older Christopher Robin! Marc Forster will direct the new movie in which Christopher is now a grown up businessman with his own family! But, as Hollywood Reporter writes, he has lost his sense of imagination, since he is now solely focused on his work and being successful! Winnie the Pooh apparently appears in his life again just when he is close to losing his wife and daughter because he's too focused on his work! Disney has also announced Frozen 2 for winter 2019 with Lion King live action earlier that summer!

'NARNIA: SILVER CHAIR' 

TO BE HELMED BY JOE JOHNSTON
Talking about fairy tales, 'Variety' reports today that Captain America director Joe Johnston has been brought to helm the new instalment in fantasy saga NARNIA: THE SILVER CHAIR! It will be a revival of C.S. Lewis fantasy series Chronicles of Narnia on the big screens. While previous installments followed the Pevensie children, the fourth movie in the saga centres on their cousin Eustace Scrubb, who travels to Narnia to save the kidnapped child of Prince Caspian. Johnston also directed Jumanji and one of the Jurassic Park movies.

'INTERLUDE IN PRAGUE' 

TRAILER WITH JAMES PUREFOY!

First trailer has been released for Mozart costume drama INTERLUDE IN PRAGUE which portrays a few turbulent months in the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the famous 18th century composer. A love story and a tragedy of epic proportions stars Aneurin Barnard as the composer at a time when has been brought to Prague by the vain and self obsessed Baron Saloka (James Purefoy). Morfydd Clark plays the beautiful soprano Zuzanna Luptak, who is betrothed to Saloka but falls in love with Mozart. Saloka, a psychopath, sexual predator and serial rapist, develops an overwhelming hatred that results in callous brutality and murder.

'CHRONICLES OF NARNIA' TO GET EPIC REBOOT WITH 'THE SILVER CHAIR'! 'AZTECS' EPIC TV ADAPTATION OF DANIEL PETERS BOOK! ABC ORDERS NEW KELLY RIPA SITCOM, FOX NEW COURTNEY COX COMEDY!

'THE SILVER CHAIR' TO BE A

REBOOT OF NARNIA MOVIE SAGA

If you love legendary epic fantasy saga THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA from CS Lewis and are sad that the movie franchise ended last decade with three films, do not despair because the fourth one is coming in the future. Producer Mark Gordon has announced that it will be based on THE SILVER CHAIR book and will be a reboot - a start of a new franchise with new actors, directors and team. The story follows Dawn Treader's Eustace and his schoolmate Jill who end up in Narnia where they need to hunt down the ageing King Caspian's missing son.

'AZTECS' EPIC TV SERIES

BASED ON DANIEL PETERS' BOOK 'THE LUCK OF HUEMAC'

Speaking of book adaptations, Televisa USA will turn Daniel Peters' acclaimed book 'The Luck of Huemac' into AZTECS TV series! MARCO POLO's and BLACK SAILS' Mark Chernuchin will run the series about a family in the waning moments of a glorious but little known civilization as the Spanish invasion looms. As 'Deadline' reports the project will tackle of the subject of the pre-Columbian empire from the family’s vantage point, rather than that of Cortez and the Conquistadors. Intrigue, betrayal and romance told from the eyes of the people that built and lost this great civilization.

NEW SITCOM PILOTS FROM

KELLY RIPA, MARK CONSUELOS
Since it is the season when comedy pilots get ordered, here's the today's batch: ABC has ordered a pilot of Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos untitled multicamera sitcom about husband and wife who are trying to fend off the gentrification of their neighbourhood in Brooklyn. When each of their three daughters announce they are romantically involved with the very people who irritate the two of them so much, they are forced to finally let these people into their lives.
AND COURTNEY COX
Fox is, meanwhile, counting on Courtney Cox in a pilot for new untitled single camera sitcom in which she would play a woman who inherits her late billionaire husband’s charity and quickly finds that changing the world is far less glamorous than she had imagined.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SHAUN SMITH RENOWNED MAKE-UP & EFFECTS EXPERT FROM '300', 'CONAN THE BARBARIAN', 'CHRONICLES OF NARNIA', 'I AM LEGEND', 'THE MONKEY KING'

  EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH

SHAUN SMITH, MOVIE MAKE-UP & EFFECTS EXPERT

Today at HOLLYWOOD SPY we are joined by Shaun Smith, make-up and effects expert who worked on many visually stunning movies such as 300, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, I AM LEGEND, THE MONKEY KING and CHRONICLES OF NARNIA! Shaun Smith has over 20 years of experience working on make-up, special make-up effects, puppets and props for feature films, television and commercials and he was kind enough to sit down and have a chitchat with your Hollywood Spy.

  SHAUN, CAN YOU TELL US WHAT DOES THE WORK OF A MAKEUP SUPERVISOR CONSIST OF? WE KNOW IT INVOLVES MUCH LEARNING, INSPIRATION AND CREATIVITY. YOU ORGANIZE AND SUPERVISE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOPS....

Yeah, I love it, love the intensity of it. It’s like a big puzzle and its fun to figure it out. There is something about the collaboration process that keeps me excited. I basically work out the details and the look with the director and other people on the team. I then do a budget and schedule for the job, hire the team, coordinate the shop build, apply and oversee make-up applications and most importantly make sure we stay under budget and on time.

  WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING WITH THE BIGGEST VISUAL GENIUS IN MODERN FILM - ZACK SNYDER - ON THE GROUNDBREAKING EPIC "300"? ANY CHANCE OF WORKING WITH HIM AGAIN?

I feel fortunate I worked with Zack on his first two films “Dawn of the Dead” and “300”. Both successful movies with a ton of make-up. Zack’s a lot of fun.  And like I said, we did two successful films together so you never know. I really like Zack so working with him again would be cool.

  YOU ALSO WORKED ON ANOTHER EPIC FILM "CONAN THE BARBARIAN" CREATING SOME TRULY MEMORABLE LOOKS. THAT GENRE IS PROBABLY A HEAVEN FOR MAKE UP ARTISTS.

I’m a huge fan of the Conan comics and the 1982 Milius film! So yeah, working on a Conan movie was unbelievable. I was totally engrossed in the process. We had a pretty small crew for a job that size. When I look back at all the makeup and hair work in that film…I am really proud of what we produced.

  CREATURE EFFECTS IN WILL SMITH'S POST APOCALYPTIC FILM "I AM LEGEND" WERE ALSO YOUR JOB?

We worked out the original make-up test with director Francis Lawrence. We imagined the Hemocytes covered in white ash because in the original script the city was going to be on fire and ash was everywhere like snow, hence the white caked make-up. The theory was that they smeared an ash concoction over their skin to protect it and give some relief to the raw and translucent skin underneath. Ultimately they decided to go digital for the infected humans (Hemocytes). I believe I ended up being credited as the Creature Effects Supervisor on the film.

 AND ALSO IN "CHRONICLES OF NARNIA" AND "FOUR BROTHERS"?

I supervised both “Chronicles” and “Four Brothers” for another company since I enjoy running shows for other people and I treat it with the same passion as if it were my own. For “Four Brothers” we built a mechanical Rottweiler that attacks Mark Walberg and Tyrese Gibson. For “Chronicles” we did eight Mechanical Deer, four white and four brown puppets. The build time was really short so I came up with the idea of building just four mechanical bodies where we could switch out the head and skin depending on which colour deer we needed for the shot.

  WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR WORK ON UPCOMING ASIAN ADVENTURE "THE MONKEY KING". NEW TRAILER SHOWS SOME REALLY OUTSTANDING MASKS AND MAKE-UP!

Thanks! Yeah, lots of fun makeup on that film. It is rumored to have cost $100 million dollar and I believe it’s one of the biggest make-up effects shows ever done in China. It is probably the most mentally challenging film I’ve ever done. It was about a year and a half stretch of crazy travel and nonstop work. We had to build a shop from the ground up and probably had close to 100 people working on hair suits and makeup effects! We made 80 full haired monkey suits or as I like to call them, Mankey suits, all hand tied, one hair at a time on to Spandex suits... Each suit had two heads and multiple faces. Plus we built a ton of other characters. Desire Soto was my Right Hand on that project! The key to surviving these huge jobs is to surround yourself with good people and have awesome interpreters who understand both cultures.

  WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON CURRENTLY?

Currently I am in pre-production on a Breck Eisner film starring Vin Diesel ”The Last Witch Hunter”! Some really cool stuff on that and I’m super excited. Earlier this year, I worked on the new season of “Eagleheart”. I also completed work on Director Jesse Johnson’s latest fan film short “Lobo” with two time World Kickboxing Champion Jerry “Golden Boy” Trimble.

  ANY ADVICE FOR ASPIRING MAKE-UP ARTISTS?

The field is saturated with aspiring artists so make sure it’s what you really want to do before you drop $10,000 or more on make-up school! Be prepared to work your way up. Learn to live frugally because starting pay can be low. And please, always be respectful of the people who came before you and learn the history. At least know who Dick Smith is. Then… practice, practice, practice!