Go for your bows: rivals race to film 1066
Almost 1,000 years after King Harold took an arrow in the eye, one of the most dramatic turning points in English history is finally to receive the cinema treatment.
Three feature films, with big-name backers and creative teams, are preparing to refight the battle of Hastings.
They all plan to show the clash between Harold and William as the falling out of two comrades, using the trusted cinema combination of violence and contrasting love lives.
Other key battles in English history — such as Agincourt, Waterloo, Trafalgar, the Spanish Armada and countless fights from the two world wars — have been filmed, but Hastings has been ignored.
“It has everything — a big-scale event, a turning point in European history and great human stories,” said Tom Holland, the historian and author of Millennium. At the core of all three films will be the friendship of two “buddies” in which Harold goes to help William, Duke of Normandy, in battles against the Bretons before they fall out and come to blows at Hastings shortly afterwards.
The English king was killed just months after coming to the throne, opening the way to the Norman conquest.
The companies planning the films include veterans of Hollywood historical epics as well as the producer of ER, the American television medical drama.
“It’s [about] the friendship and trust between two men who then became great rivals,” said Michael Kuhn, of the British company Qwerty Films — producer of The Duchess, starring Keira Knightley — which is working on one of the versions.
The screenwriter on the second version is William Nicholson, whose numerous film scripts have included Shadowlands and last year’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
“In Hollywood terms it is a ‘buddy’ movie about two men which ended in tears,” said Nicholson, whose other work has included the Roman epic Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe, with its grandiose opening battle. But Nicholson added: “I don’t see this primarily as a battle movie.”
Nicholson is writing his Hastings script for the newly formed film production arm of Shine, a television company whose hits include Spooks and Merlin.
The third film, which has a working title of William the Conqueror, has an equally strong pedigree. With a $100m (£67m) budget, it will be co-produced for Killer Films by Pamela Koffler, who made the Oscar-winning Boys Don’t Cry.
The other co–producer is John Wells, who made ER.
“I know a lot of people in the US might not have heard of William and 1066, but he was a dynamic and charismatic figure while the battle was a defining moment in history,” Koffler said...
Read entire article at Times (UK)
Three feature films, with big-name backers and creative teams, are preparing to refight the battle of Hastings.
They all plan to show the clash between Harold and William as the falling out of two comrades, using the trusted cinema combination of violence and contrasting love lives.
Other key battles in English history — such as Agincourt, Waterloo, Trafalgar, the Spanish Armada and countless fights from the two world wars — have been filmed, but Hastings has been ignored.
“It has everything — a big-scale event, a turning point in European history and great human stories,” said Tom Holland, the historian and author of Millennium. At the core of all three films will be the friendship of two “buddies” in which Harold goes to help William, Duke of Normandy, in battles against the Bretons before they fall out and come to blows at Hastings shortly afterwards.
The English king was killed just months after coming to the throne, opening the way to the Norman conquest.
The companies planning the films include veterans of Hollywood historical epics as well as the producer of ER, the American television medical drama.
“It’s [about] the friendship and trust between two men who then became great rivals,” said Michael Kuhn, of the British company Qwerty Films — producer of The Duchess, starring Keira Knightley — which is working on one of the versions.
The screenwriter on the second version is William Nicholson, whose numerous film scripts have included Shadowlands and last year’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
“In Hollywood terms it is a ‘buddy’ movie about two men which ended in tears,” said Nicholson, whose other work has included the Roman epic Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe, with its grandiose opening battle. But Nicholson added: “I don’t see this primarily as a battle movie.”
Nicholson is writing his Hastings script for the newly formed film production arm of Shine, a television company whose hits include Spooks and Merlin.
The third film, which has a working title of William the Conqueror, has an equally strong pedigree. With a $100m (£67m) budget, it will be co-produced for Killer Films by Pamela Koffler, who made the Oscar-winning Boys Don’t Cry.
The other co–producer is John Wells, who made ER.
“I know a lot of people in the US might not have heard of William and 1066, but he was a dynamic and charismatic figure while the battle was a defining moment in history,” Koffler said...