Hunt is on for a new Oliver for the big screen
THE makers of a new film based on Lionel Bart’s musical Oliver! are planning to embark on a nationwide search to find two lads to play the title character and The Artful Dodger.
‘I don’t care if Jennifer Lawrence is cast as nancy and Leonardo DiCaprio as Bill Sikes — no film of Oliver will work without the right kids to play Oliver and Dodger,’ an executive associated with the production told me yesterday.
Just to be clear, Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio are not in the picture.
Director Toby Haynes has been chosen by Cameron mackintosh, Working Title and Sony Pictures to direct. The film is expected to be given the green light within weeks, and if complicated rights deals can be completed, the hope is it will begin filming early next year, and be released at the end of 2016.
The new version will film in and around London using authentic locations — unlike the Oscar-winning picture made by Carol Reed, which was mostly shot on sound stages at a studio.
Some preliminary work on finding locations has already been done, and some sites along the Thames have been explored by Haynes and his creative team.
In terms of casting the young leads, the producers have a builtin advantage because Working Title is the studio behind the film and stage versions of Billy Elliot.
That musical, now in its 11th year at the Victoria Palace (it goes on a UK tour sometime next year) has an enormous casting operation, scouring the country to find youngsters to play Billy and the other children in the show.
They’re trained in singing and dancing, so those kids could be a starting point for Haynes and casting director Lucinda Syson — and they could work with a
voice coach, if needs be, for the Cockney accent. It’s unlikely that any Oliver or Dodger would be cast from America — I was advised they’d have to be British.
CAMERON mackintosh was not available for comment yesterday; nor were producers f rom Working Title. However, when mackintosh and I talked about Oliver last year, when the project was still a gleam in his eye — and Stephen Daldry was toying with the idea of making it — he told me there would be no problem casting the adult roles such as Fagin, Sikes, nancy, Bumble and the Sowerberrys.
‘There are actors all around for those roles. It comes down to who’s available when it’s being made,’ he said. There was some chatter last year about Samantha Barks, who played Eponine in the film version of Les miserables, playing nancy. But no one was prepared to discuss or speculate last night.
Haynes has worked on several prime-time TV projects with an array of leading thespians, all of whom could end up with main parts or cameos.
He made the BBC 19th-century drama Jonathan Strange & mr norrell, which starred Bertie Carvel and Eddie marsan; worked with Peter Capaldi on The musketeers; David Tennant and matt Smith on Doctor Who (he did the 2010 holiday special A Christmas Carol); and Benedict Cumberbatch and martin Freeman on Sherlock.