Movies on pause before big reboot
Eric Fellner, the co-chairman of film company Working Title, sat in his top-floor office with sweeping, picture-window views of the choicest parts of Marylebone, and pronounced that the ‘only people who can earn money right now are screenwriters’. Fellner, who runs the famous firm with Tim Bevan, said the dramatic covid-19 crisis had shut down the film business ‘as if someone flipped a switch ... and that’s it.’ Everything stopped. He’s spent the past few days writing to the cast and crews of films that had to be closed down days, or sometimes weeks, before filming. They included Lena Dunham’s catherine, called Birdy: a movie about a teenage girl in medieval times; and The Swimmers, about the Syrian refugees who swam at the rio Olympics. Other pictures, such as rebecca, starring Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristin
Scott Thomas, directed by Ben Wheatley, and Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho with Anya Taylor-Joy and Matt Smith, have been halted in post-production. But, Fellner told me, ‘next week is about rebooting’. ‘it’s how we’re going to work in the future and what projects we’re going to do,’ he said. ‘People have wanted stories, and story-telling, for ever. And they’ll want it when we’re out the other side.’ He reckoned that there’ll be ‘a lot of virus, contagion and plague-type scripts in development ... but i can guarantee you no one’s going to want to watch them when this is all over’. He mentioned the circulars on social media, listing the films people want to watch while isolating; and the suggestions from family friends and associates. ‘They’re all upbeat, romantic, funny,’ he said. ‘That’s what we want.’