charles sturridge Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Leave it to Hollywood to dig up a fact that nearly two centuries of historical research has missed -- that the famous Bronte sisters, Anne, Emily and Charlotte, were all smoking hot. A new biopic of the trio, simply titled Bronte, has just been greenlit for a fall start, and will star Bryce Dallas Howard, Michelle Williams and Evan Rachel Wood. Annoyingly, the Variety article doesn't identify who will be playing which sister, but I think Howard would be the obvious choice to play Anne, the least successful sister whose most accomplished work was The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She can do the whole constipated-with-disappointment thing pretty well, I imagine. Emily and Charlotte were the real stars of the family, with the former penning Wuthering Heights and the latter topping that with Jane Eyre. The article also declines to give us any kind of outline as to the story, unless its doing so by proxy when it mentions that the sisters, as youngsters, "created epic fantasy worlds to entertain themselves."

The film was written and will be directed by Charles Sturridge, whose last effort was the 2005 film Lassie, which was barely released in U.S. theaters. Before that, he mostly did TV, including a rendering of Gulliver's Travels, so who knows what kind of quality we're looking at here. Interestingly, IMDB has had a Bronte page up for a while, and there are other actresses in all the main parts except for Michelle Williams, who is credited as Charlotte. Nathalie Press is credited as Emily and Emily Barclay is credited as Anne. Guess that was until Gwen Stacy decided to come knocking. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is also credited on IMDB as Bronte brother Branwell -- who knows if that still applies. The film is set to get rolling in September.

In case you haven't noticed, the hot new Hollywood trend these days is to find a series of books that feature kids with mystical powers, buy up all the rights, and develop each book into a film with the intentions of producing the next blockbuster trilogy. Ever since The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films demolished the box office, studios are constantly on the hunt for a hot new teen-related franchise.

Recently, Mel Gibson became the latest to purchase a ticket on the trend train after his Icon Productions optioned the rights to a trilogy by Libba Bray, tapping director Charles Sturridge (Lassie) to helm the first installment. According to Variety, the books "center on four rebel teens in Victorian England who gain power from access to a mysterious realm." Oohh, a historical Harry Potter -- I love it! The first two books in the series (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels) were both New York Times bestsellers; the third is due out next year. Surprisingly, there is no studio partner currently on the project. However, by the time I finish writing this, I'm sure one will climb onboard.