Friday, 18 June 2010

No Hopers go to Glastonbury!

The subjects of Ealing's latest movie Fisherman's Friends head to Glastonbury....or not....

We don't want to go to Glastonbury. Will they give us drugs?'... Cornish buoy band is all at sea with prospect of fame

By PETRONELLA WYATT
Last updated at 6:36 PM on 29th May 2010

Where is my lobster?' demands Jeremy Brown, lead singer with Britain's hottest new pop act. 'It's on the floor,' I reply, pointing. 'It crawled out of the basket.'

'Well, go and catch it,' he retorts heatedly.

Sadly, we are not in some swanky London restaurant frequented by the decadent glitterati, sipping champagne before our seafood platter arrives. Jeremy catches his seafood platter by hand - every day of the week except Sundays.

We are on his fishing boat, the Free Spirit II, navigating the choppy emerald seas off Cornwall. The wind is stinging and I have just been nipped by a crustacean. My job is to measure the lobsters to determine if they are large enough to sell and then put rubber bands round their claws.

Firm friends: The Fisherman's Friends are all old salts from Cornwall who remain sceptical of fame despite having signed a £1million record deal

Ealing Studios' 2011 projects announced

Ealing Studios' projects announced

In Cannes, Ealing Studios announced a raft of high-profile projects including the $35m (£24m) Dustin Hoffman project Nightwork. Based on Irwin Shaw’s novel, it is being scripted by Will Davies (How To Train Your Dragon). The film is a light-hearted caper thriller set around Europe.

“We’re interested in finding bigger, glossier movies,” Ealing boss Barnaby Thompson said. “What we are finding is that those old New Line distributors and others are desperate for those bigger movies. They all need films that they can mass market.”

The studio is also developing big budget thriller All That Glitters, scripted by Richard Warlow. This is billed by Thompson as Ealing’s homage to John Huston’sThe Maltese Falcon. It is about the hunt for a necklace that once belonged to Helen of Troy and will have a budget between $25m (£17m) to $35m (£24m).

Meanwhile, Ealing is hatching a third St Trinian’s film, likely to be called St Trinian’s Versus The World. It will shoot either at the end of this year or in early 2011.

Ealing is also to revive the Doctor In The Housefranchise. In Cannes, Thompson confirmed that it is remaking the 1954 Rank Organisation comedy classic which transformed Dirke Bogarde into a major star. Its regular UK distributor Entertainment is co-developing the project and will handle the UK release. Ealing bought the rights from ITV. If the film proves successful, further Doctor films are expected to follow.

The studio is also developing Fishermen’s Friends, a film about a group of Cornish fishermen who enjoyed unlikely chart success singing sea shanties. Thompson bills the project as “a male Calendar Girls”.

Ealing Filmography