MY WEEK WITH MARILYN STARTS PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Friday 8th October, London. Trademark Films and The Weinstein Company have announced that principal photography has started on My Week with Marilyn for 7 weeks at Pinewood Studios and on location in and around London. Michelle Williams plays the iconic Marilyn Monroe alongside a fantastic British cast including Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Dominic Cooper, Emma Watson and Julia Ormond. The film chronicles a week in the life of Marilyn Monroe in which she escapes the shackles of her Hollywood career and embraces British life with Colin Clark. Directed by Simon Curtis and produced by David Parfitt, the film is based on Colin Clark’s diaries and has been adapted for the screen by Adrian Hodges.
In the early summer of 1956, 23 year-old Colin Clark, just down from Oxford and determined to make his way in the film business, worked as a lowly assistant on the set of ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’, the film that famously united Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe, who was also on honeymoon with her new husband, the playwright Arthur Miller.
Nearly 40 years on, his diary account ‘The Prince, the Showgirl and Me’ was published, but one week was missing and this was published some years later as ‘My Week with Marilyn’ - this is the story of that week. When Arthur Miller leaves England, the coast is clear for Colin to introduce Marilyn to some of the pleasures of British life; an idyllic week in which he escorted a Monroe desperate to get away from her retinue of Hollywood hangers-on and the pressures of work.
Marilyn Monroe is played by the Academy Award nominated Michelle Williams (The soon to be released Blue Valentine, Shutter Island, Brokeback Mountain) and Tony award winning Eddie Redmayne (The Other Boleyn Girl, The Good Shepherd) stars as Colin Clark. Kenneth Branagh (Director of upcoming Thor, ‘Wallander’) plays Sir Laurence Olivier with Judi Dench (Quantum of Solace) as Dame Sybil Thorndike. They are joined by the very best of British acting talent including Julia Ormond (‘Temple Grandin,’ Che, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) as Vivien Leigh, Dougray Scott (Mission Impossible II) as Arthur Miller, Zoe Wanamaker (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone), Emma Watson (Harry Potter series), Toby Jones (Frost Nixon, Infamous), Philip Jackson (Little Voice), Geraldine Somerville (Harry Potter series), Derek Jacobi (Gosford Park), Simon Russell Beale (An Ideal Husband) and Dominic Cooper (Tamara Drewe, An Education, Mamma Mia).
Simon Curtis directs. His credits include the BAFTA and Emmy winning ‘Cranford’, the International Emmy winning ‘A Short Stay in Switzerland’ and the Golden Globe nominated ‘Five Days’. The film is produced by Academy Award and BAFTA winner David Parfitt (Shakespeare in Love, The Madness of King George, I Capture the Castle) and the screenplay is by Adrian Hodges (Tom and Viv, ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’ and ‘David Copperfield’). It is based on Colin Clark’s diaries, ‘The Prince, The Showgirl and Me’ and ‘My Week with Marilyn.’
The film is produced by Trademark Films and is financed and distributed by The Weinstein Company. BBC Films and Lipsync Productions are also financing the picture. It was developed in association with the UK Film Council and BBC Films.
David Parfitt, Managing Director, Trademark Films, comments: “We are delighted to be re-establishing our successful partnership with the incomparable, irrepressible Harvey Weinstein. We have a superb cast and crew thanks in no small part to the support of The Weinstein Company and our incredible development partners: UK Film Council and BBC Films.”
Harvey Weinstein from The Weinstein Company says: “We are truly thrilled to be working with the immensely talented Simon Curtis on his feature debut, with our trusted partners and good friends producer David Parfitt, Christine Langan and BBC Films, from a remarkable true story, beautifully realised script, stellar cast and top-notch crew, we couldn’t be happier embarking on this production.”
Christine Langan, Creative Director of BBC Films, adds: “With his illustrious background in BBC drama, we are proud to be supporting Simon Curtis in his movie debut.
The brilliant host of talent that Simon, along with Oscar winning producer David Parfitt, has brought together to tell this gem of a British story is truly exciting and we are privileged to be going on this journey with the magnificent Harvey Weinstein.”
ABOUT TRADEMARK FILMS:
Trademark Films was established in 2000 by Academy and Bafta Award winning producer David Parfitt, with other members of his regular production team. Trademark’s debut production was the acclaimed 2001 adaptation of Dodie Smith’s much loved novel I Capture The Castle.
David’s credits as producer include: Henry V, Peter’s Friends, Much Ado about Nothing, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, The Madness of King George, Twelfth Night, The Wings of the Dove, Shakespeare in Love, I Capture the Castle, Chasing Liberty and A Bunch of Amateurs.
Trademark has a diverse development slate which includes both literary and theatre adaptations, as well as original material from both emerging and established writing and directing talent.
ABOUT THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY:
The Weinstein Company (TWC) was created by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the brothers who founded Miramax Films Corporation in 1979. TWC is a multi-media company that officially launched on October 1, 2005. Dimension Films, the genre label that was founded in 1993 by Bob Weinstein, is also included under the TWC banner. During the Weinsteins’ tenure at Miramax Films, the company released some of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful independent feature films which received 249 Academy Award® nominations and won 60 Oscars®, and have generated billions of dollars in worldwide box office receipts and billions more in home video sales. In its history, Dimension Films has released some of the most successful franchises including Scream, Spy Kids and Scary Movie.
Forthcoming releases include Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter, Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, John Wells’ (‘ER’, ‘The West Wing’) feature directorial debut Company Men starring Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Costner, Rosemary DeWitt, Maria Bello and Chris Cooper, with new installments of Spy Kids 4 and Scream 4 in production.
ABOUT BBC FILMS:
BBC Films is the feature filmmaking arm of the BBC. It aims to make strong British films with range and ambition, bringing the best of British talent to audiences. BBC Films is firmly established at the forefront of British independent filmmaking, and co-produces around eight films a year, working in partnership with major international and UK distributors.
Creative Director Christine Langan is responsible for the development and production slate. Jane Wright is Managing Director, responsible for running the business operations and marketing.
Recent hits include StreetDance, Britain’s first-ever 3-D movie, Lone Scherfig’s Academy Award®-nominated and BAFTA award-winning An Education; Armando Iannucci’s Academy Award® and BAFTA award-nominated In the Loop; Jane Campion’s Academy award-nominated Bright Star; and Andrea Arnold’s BAFTA award-winning Fish Tank.
Nigel Cole's Made in Dagenham has just opened in the UK and forthcoming releases include Rowan Joffe's feature debut Brighton Rock, Ayub Khan Din's follow up to East is East, West is West, directed by Andy de Emmony, and finally Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus, a modern retelling of the Shakespeare classic.
CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog
The movie was a bit lacklustre to start with - though it was enjoyable enough it all seemed a bit pedestrian for much of the first half. The second half was much better; things moved faster, the humour was better with laughs coming thicker and faster, and the characters developed. There were actually some very touching moments in Despicable Me, particularly when Gru saw the drawing the girls had added to the bottom of his family tree. Some other things to look out for are the Godfather parody when Gru wakes up to find a doll's head in his bed, and Edith uttering the line ": When we got adopted by a bald guy, I was thinking it'd be more like Annie". There could perhaps be more for older members of the audience to enjoy, but there was certainly enough to make Despicable Me worth watching, and the kids in the audience I was in seemed to love it.
