When Ealing Studios was resurrected a couple of years ago, it initially looked like it might just be a little vanity label producing low-rent projects that traded on the classic name. However it’s since revealed itself to be something a bit grander and more interesting than that, making decent sized projects with proper star names.
The company is currently in Cannes announcing its new slate of films to the world, which will be led by Nightwork, a $35 million movie starring Dustin Hoffman. Screen International reports the movie will be based on Irwin Shaw’s novel, with a script by Will Davies (How To Train Your Dragon). The caper thriller is about a hotel security guard who discovers a dead woman with $100,000 lying around her room, which sets him off on a chase around Europe.
Ealing is also working on All That Glitters, based on a script by Richard Warlow, which is described as an homage to The Maltese Falcon, focussing on the hunt for a necklace that once belonged to Helen Of Troy. They’re also hatching a third St Trinians movie, this one called St Trinians Versus The World, and are planning to resurrect the Doctor In The House comedy franchise, which started with Dirk Bogarde in 1954 and continued through six sequels (starring other people), with the last coming in 1970.
Finally, Ealing is working on a movie called Fishermens Friends, a film about a group of Cornish fishermen who recently enjoyed unlikely chart success singing sea shanties.
Interestingly the growth of Ealing is partly being put down to New Line Cinema being merged into Warner Bros. Previously New Line movies were handled by a network of independent distributors around the world, and as Ealing Boss Barnaby Thomas puts it, Were interested in finding bigger, glossier movies. 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 think they can mass market.