Nicholas Hoult to film Tolkien in Liverpool
A US biopic of author JRR Tolkien is in pre-production readying for an autumn shoot in Liverpool.
Nicholas Hoult is lined up to play the writer, poet and professor, whose works such as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led to his moniker as the ‘father’ of modern fantasy literature.
Tolkien is for Fox Searchlight, and reportedly centres on the last years of Tolkien’s schooldays at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and his early years at Oxford during the build-up to the First World War.
Peter Chernin produces for Chernin Entertainment in LA with Finnish director Dome Karukoski at the helm.
PI subscribers can log in for more on the project including key hires such as the casting director, co-producer, UPM, production designer and location manager. Non-subscribers can click here to request a free online demo.
Liverpool is known as a very film-friendly city, with grand civic buildings that double for architecture of other world cities such as New York, a dedicated film office and a new film studio in the pipeline on the site of the former Littlewoods building.
The city has been anjoying another busy year in production terms, with TV drama The City & The City and comedy Timewasters among those having been based there so far in 2017.
There are two other Tolkien films currently in development – Middle Earth, which tells of the events which led the author to write his most famous books, and Tolkien and Lewis, which focuses on his friendship with fellow author CS Lewis.
Photo via Getty Images Ent/FilmMagic/C Flanigan.
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