PREMIUM SPOTLIGHT ON CHEVALIER MOVIE DRAMA SET AT THE 18TH CENTURY COURT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE AND LOUIS XVI!

  CHEVALIER MOVIE DRAMA  

WELCOME TO FRENCH COURT

To our delight, there is a number of upcoming period set movies that will have their stories happening in France. Beside Clicquot, which will follow the rise

After cinemas Chevalier will land on Disney in June

of the famous champagne producing dynasty starring our sweetest boo Leo Suter, and Le Pot Au Feu de Dodin Bouffant, with Juliette Binoche and her baby's daddy Benoit Magimel in the love story set in the world of 1885 French gastronomy, we will first enjoy CHEVALIER movie drama which arrives to cinemas April 21st after successfully screening last September at Toronto Film Festival. After our visit to the lavish court of Catherine the Great yesterday, this one is taking us over to the glitzy court of Marie Antoinette. Her personal composer Chevalier de Saint-Georges also appears briefly in Marie Antoinette series which already aired in Europe, but will arrive to USA on PBS Masterpiece this March. But Stephen Williams directed movie, based on the true story of composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner, follows his rise to heights in French society as a composer before an ill-fated love affair.

 

THE STORY FOLLOWS 

 The rise and resurgence of Chevalier de Saint-Georges (played by Kelvin Harrison Jr), an 18th century French-Caribbean violinist and composer who rose to fame through his musical prodigy. But a complicated love life and the racism of the ancien régime leads to a falling out with Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton), whose entourage he was a member of at the French court, and Saint-Georges realizes that things must change. Beside being a composer, virtuoso violinist and an amazing swordsman who fought many duels, he also founded schools for children in Africa.

 WHO ELSE IS AT THE COURT?

The cast of the new movie also includes gorgeous Samara Weaving who stars as Marie-Josephine de Montalembert, Marton Csokas as Marc René, marquis de Montalembert, Alex Fitzalan as Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans and godawful Minnie Driver as Marie-Madeleine Guimard! Sian Clifford is Madame de Genlis with Joseph Proven playing famous Mozart (he lived at the time of Mozart, Haydn and Liszt) and Sam Barlien portraying the king himself Louis XVI of France! The film boasts resplendent costumes and sets which were shot in Czech capital Prague. 

SLATE OF UPCOMING NEW PROJECTS WITH ALEX PETTYFER, GUY PEARCE, SAMARA WEAVING, KATE BOSWORTH, DENNIS QUAID, THOMAS KRETSCHMANN, SARAH GADON, HENRY GOLDING, BILLY MAGNUSSEN!

 UPCOMING MOVIE PROJECTS 

SAMARA WEAVING'S AZRAEL

We are in that part of the year when movie markets are looming ahead of us, so I have a slate of new projects that will be offered to buyers in Berlin, Cannes

Samara Weaving will lead Azrael movie

and other markets this year. Director E.L.Katz has Samara Weaving in his movie AZRAEL, set in a world in which no one speaks, where a devout female-led community hunts down a young woman who has escaped her imprisonment. 

LAST SENTINEL

Vertical has already bought rights to this sf movie set in the near future, where unchecked and rampant climate change has caused temperatures and sea levels to rise catastrophically. Only two large continents remain, and billions die during the mass migration to these higher lands.

Thomas Kretschmann is the last sentinel

Surrounded by an endless ocean thousands of miles from home, a skeleton crew of soldiers (Kate Bosworth, Lucien Laviscount, Martin McCann and Thomas Kretschmann) stand as the last bastion, defending their homeland from an invasion by an enemy they have never seen, monitoring for signs of attack and prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause. Their tour of duty ended 3 months ago with no relief in sight. Alone and uncertain as to what fate awaits them, the simmering tension amongst the crew escalates when a mysterious boat drifts into range – is it the help they have been waiting for, or something far more sinister? Oscar nominee Tanel Toom helms. 

SUNRISE NEO NOIR MOVIE

Alex Pettyfer will see the Sunrise

Andrew Baird is directing Alex Pettyfer as Fallon, a man who roams the land as a creature of the night while he comes to terms with the loss of his family at the hands of the brutal demagogue Reynolds, played by Guy Pearce.

PERIOD SET COUP!

Peter Saarsgard, Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon lead this period set drama set on a seaside estate during the 1918 Spanish Flu, where a rebellious servant spearheads an uprising against his wealthy employer.  

DANIELA FOREVER FILM

Henry Golding will lead the new sf movie

Henry Golding is, meanwhile, leading this sf movie playing a man who signs up for a sleep trial that allows him to reconstruct his life with a dead partner through the use of dreams. Nacho Vigalondo is directing.

 

LITTLE MOUTH

Cast including Isabelle Fuhrman, Dennis Quaid, David Thewlis, Josh Hutcherson leads this movie about a brilliant computer scientist who is recruited by a charismatic tech billionaire to work on a secret project that could change humanity’s place in the universe forever, but it comes at a great risk.

SEE A BLACK MOZART AT MARIE ANTOINETTE'S COURT IN CHEVALIER COSTUME DRAMA TRAILER WITH SAMARA WEAVING, MARTON CSOKAS! ROBIN DES BOIS, PRINCE DES VOLEURS, FRENCH ROBIN HOOD EPIC MOVIE IN PRODUCTION!

   NEW ROBIN HOOD  

FRENCH LANGUAGE MOVIE

Ludovic Bernard is directing the feature

As Screen Daily reports, French studio Gaumont and Albertine Productions are preparing a French language feature film about legendary outlaw and archer Robin Hood. Ludovic Bernard, who worked on Lupin, will direct Robin des Bois, Prince des Voleurs (Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves) movie. Immensely ambitious, the movie will revolve around a brigand with a big heart: he is Saxon, he falls in love with a Norman girl, he is faithful to his King and he redistributes wealth. After Eroll Flynn, Walt Disney’s Fox and Kevin Costner, the producers wish to bring a French touch to this popular hero.

  CHEVALIER MOVIE TRAILER 

SET IN 18TH CENTURY PARIS

But your main period set treat for the beginning of the week is the fist trailer for costume drama CHEVALIER which should arrive into cinemas

Chevalier arrives next April

next April starring Kelvin Harrison Jr, Samara Weaving, Marton Csokas and Lucy Boynton as Marie Antoinette. The movie, which was shot in Czech capital Prague, depicts the rise and resurgence of Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a French-Caribbean violinist and composer (sometimes referred to by the nickname "Black Mozart") who rose to fame through his musical prodigy. But a complicated love life and the racism of the ancient regime leads to a falling out with Marie Antoinette and Saint-Georges realizes that things must change. The film premiered at Toronto Film Festival this September. Check out the flashy trailer below and tell us what you think, is he acting too modern for a costume drama?

PREMIUM SPOTLIGHT ON NINE PERFECT STRANGERS TV SERIES WHICH BEGINS NEXT MONTH ON HULU WITH LUKE EVANS, NICOLE KIDMAN, MELISSA MCCARTHY, MICHAEL SHANNON, BOBBY CANNAVALE

  NINE PERFECT STRANGERS 

ON A STRANGE NEW THERAPY

Back in 2018 when Liane Moriarty's book was published it became a bestseller, so the expectations are that the series NINE PERFECT

Strangers gather on Hulu August 18th

STRANGERS based on it will also score success on the small screens when it launches August 18th on Hulu with first three episodes available at once and then the rest airing each week till the end of September. The eight episode series is created by legendary TV producer David E. Kelley! 

 

  NINE PERFECT STRANGERS follows nine strangers from the city who gather for a 10 day retreat at Tranquillum House, a secluded health and wellness resort which promises to transform and heal the guests who stay there. However, the resort is not what it seems to be and the guests are about

The series will air in eight episodes

to discover many secrets about each other and the resort's host, mysterious wellness guru Masha (Nicole Kidman). As healing begins, the guests begin to doubt the retreat’s unconventional methods. They came for massages and relaxation, not to face their own mortality.

 

Nine strangers on this even stranger therapy include Frances (Melissa McCarthy), Lars (Luke Evans), Tony (Bobby Cannavale), Carmel (Regina Hall), Napoleon (Michael Shannon), Jessica (Samara Weaving), Ben (Melvin Gregg), Heather (Asher Keddie) and Zoe (Grace Van Patten). The cast also includes Tiffany Boone and Manny Jacinto as Tranquillum House employees.

CHRISTIAN BALE TO LEAD HISTORICAL ADVENTURE JANISSARY FROM DARA OF JASENOVAC DIRECTOR, SHARON STONE IN TALKS TO JOIN! SAMARA WEAVING JOINS KELVIN HARRISON JR IN CHEVALIER DE SAINT GEORGES MARIE ANTOINETTE COURT SET MOVIE

  CHRISTIAN BALE TO LEAD  

JANISSARY HISTORICAL MOVIE

I think we are the first ones to break this news in English, but Gaga Antonijevic, who directed last year's Serbian Oscar representative

The production should start next year

Dara from Jasenovac, is preparing a massive new historical adventure JANISSARY based on real historical custom of the Ottoman empire to steal babies from occupied lands and then raise them as killer Janissaries who would then be sent to pillage their own villages often unknowingly killing their own mothers and sisters in the process. He has already set Christian Bale as the male lead in the film that he has been preparing for twenty years now. 

 

    Set at the end of the 16th century, the film will see Bale playing a Serb taken as a child to Istanbul where he becomes a pasha in their army. The sultan eventually sends him to his fatherland to end the Serbian rebellion and this is where he gets faced both with his past and with a moral dilemma of what to do.

 

Gaga has also revealed that he is currently negotiating with Sharon Stone to take the role of Bale's mother in the film. Bale, who is married to a Serbian woman in real life, has worked with the director on the script which should start shooting sometime next year in Serbia and Turkey.  

 SAMARA WEAVING TO JOIN 

CHEVALIER DE SAINT GEORGES

We mentioned the movie a few months ago, and now Hollywood Reporter writes that Samara Weaving has joined CHEVALIER DE SAINT GEORGES historical drama as opera singer! Kelvin Harrison Jr plays the

Samara Weaving will take the female lead

lead as Joseph Bologne, or the Chevalier de Saint Georges, also known as the Black Mozart. Born in the Caribbean, Bologne was the illegitimate son of a plantation owner and a slave who was then educated in France and became a fencing master, which served as an entrée into French high society. With his music and operas, he ascended to the upper echelons of Marie Antoinette’s Paris society until a court scandal laid him low. Weaving will play Marie Josephine, a woman who yearns for creative fulfillment outside of her empty, loveless marriage and defies her controlling husband to become the voice of Bologne’s opera. Stephen Williams is directing for Searchlight.

PERIOD SET GENRE NEWS: JOEL FRY JOINS SARAH SNOOK IN JANE AUSTEN'S PERSUASION ADAPTATION! SAMARA WEAVING TO LEAD LIZ PATTERSON BONAPARTE BIOPIC ON NAPOLEON'S SISTER IN LAW

  JANE AUSTEN'S PERSUASION 

MAKES JOEL FRY A CAPTAIN

Last year your spy informed you that Jane Austen's 1818 popular novel PERSUASION is being made into a movie adapted by Jessica Swale and that Sarah Snook will be playing the lead role, and now Joel Fry has been

Joel Fry will take the male lead in Persuasion

cast as the male lead according to Hollywood Reporter.

  PERSUASION

 a romance of second chances, tells the story of Anne Elliot (Sarah Snook) who, many years after refusing the proposal of young naval officer Frederick Wentworth (Joel Fry), finds herself navigating the waters of English society when Wentworth returns from war a wealthy and decorated captain. As Anne ponders missed opportunities, she must consider her own regrets and unwavering, possibly unrequited love. Beside appearing in Game of Thrones, Joel is also starring in Emma Stone's Cruella which is going straight to  Disney + streamer.

 SAMARA WEAVING TO LEAD 

LIZ PATTERSON BONAPARTE FILM

Speaking of period set movies, Variety reported this week that Samara Weaving (she's Hugo's niece) will lead LIZ a biopic about one of America’s forgotten founding mothers Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte. To be

Samara starred in Picnic at Hanging Rock

directed by Adam Leon, the movie tells the story of the country’s first modern socialite. Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, a daughter of  an 18th century Baltimore merchant, gained prominence as the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte’s youngest brother, Jerome, and revolutionized America’s social scene in the time of Jefferson’s presidency. Elizabeth, who has been called one of America’s first international celebrities, was known for her fashion, wit and independence. After marrying Jerome when she was 17, Liz quickly became known for her risqué taste in fashion, starting with her wedding dress (from a see-through muslin). Jerome did not fulfill Napoleon's order to leave his wife and return to France. When they finally went to his coronation, Liz was not allowed to set foot in

Both Liz and Jerome were underaged when they got married

France by Napoleon's order. Although she gave him a son, Jerome later on annulled their marriage and married a German princess, and Liz returned to America where she kept flaunting her royal connection. After the Battle of Waterloo, she returned to Europe, where she reportedly was well received in the most exclusive circles and much admired for her beauty and wit.