Hugh Hudson hasn’t made a fiction feature since 2000 with I Dreamed Of Africa, but with a re-release due for Chariots Of Fire and lots of interest in that movie due to the London Olympics, he’s decided it’s time to come out of semi-retirement for Midnight Sun.
The film is a family adventure film described as being in the vein of Free Willy and Dolphin Tale, set amongst the ice fields of Northern Canada. The hero is a young boy, Luke, who defies the dangerous elements of nature to reunite an abandoned polar bear cub with its mother. Luke is aided by Muktuk, a half Inuit and half Canadian, who knows the terrain where polar bears live like the back of his hand. But they are soon separated on the floating ice of the high Arctic, and Luke and the cub are left to protect themselves from bear attacks, giant icebergs, and vicious windstorms.
BAFTA and Emmy award-winning cinematographer Doug Allan will lens the wildlife and natural elements of the picture, with production design by Andrew Sanders (Chariots of Fire, The Last Temptation of Christ). The film will start shooting in November 2012, with locations in the Canadian Arctic and Manitoba.