Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci will star in ‘The Children Act’.
The movie, based on Ian McEwan’s 2014 novel, will feature Emma as a High Court judge in London, whose marriage to Stanley’s character, a professor, is in crisis.
While dealing with her personal issues, she is called upon to rule in the case of a 17-year-old boy named Adam (‘Dunkirk’s Fionn Whitehouse), who is refusing a life-saving blood transfusion on religious grounds.
Richard Eyre will direct the movie while Duncan Kenworthy is producing.
Executive producers include Glen Basner and Ben Browning from FilmNation, Joe Oppenheimer and Beth Pattinson from BBC Films, and Charles Moore.
Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that Emma is set to star in a comedy about a talk show.
The story – written by Mindy Kaling – sees Emma play a veteran chat show host in danger of losing her long-running series. The disastrous news comes, coincidentally, at a time when the production company decide to hire the first female writer in the show’s history, played by Mindy.
Variety reports a source described the script as ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ meets ‘Broadcast News’.
Former ‘The Office’ star Mindy is also producing the project, with the help of Scott Rudin and Howard Klein.
There’s no studio attached the production as of yet, but sources report a bidding war for the package is to be expected, with several already in contention for bagging the project.
But Emma – who won an Oscar for her 1995 adaptation of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ – won’t be looking for any award nominations from this project, as earlier this year she said she thinks shows like the Oscars "drive everybody insane" and should be scrapped.
She said previously: "What we need is to change awards season, which goes on for four-and-a-half months – or longer – and drives everybody insane. We really do need to do something about that. There are too many awards ceremonies; all sort of tied up with too much money. They’re using actors in ways that I think are not healthy at all. A lot of us feel the same way… there’s no joy or sense of celebration any more."
Emma Thompson to star in The Children Act
