Mike Leigh is not a big one for letting people know what he’s up to, so that’s why there’s been absolutely no information released about his new movie until filming has already begun. Shooting on his currently untitled new movie began this week, although as is unusual with Leigh, there’s absolutely no info on what the film is about.
In fact the only other info released is that the movie will star, in alphabetical order, Michele Austin, David Bradley, Jim Broadbent, Phil Davis, Karina Fernandez, Oliver Maltman, Lesley Manville, Stuart McQuarrie, Martin Savage, Ruth Sheen, Imelda Staunton and Peter Wight. The importance of them releasing an alphabetical list is that as usual they’re not even saying who’s got the lead role, although you’ve got to imagine Jim Broadbent and Imelda Staunton will be pretty important to the film.
As they’re saying filming has already begun on the nine week shoot, we’re presuming Leigh has already gone through the usual process where he intensely workshops the film, involving lots of improvisation from the actors and scutpling it into a movie, before putting it all into a screenplay and shooting it.
It’s Leigh first film since the death of longtime producing partner Simon Channing Williams, although he’s still working through Thin Man Films, which Leigh and Williams set up in 1998. Gerogina Lowe is taking over producing duties.
Any time that Leigh gets behind a camera is reason to get excited and we look forward to whatever ‘Untitled 09’ turns into.