The Veterans is launching international sales on upcoming UK period comedy Fackham Hall at Toronto and has unveiled first members of the ensemble cast.
In the first significant deal announced during TIFF, Bleecker Street has acquired U.S. rights for the film.
First signings include Hero Fiennes Tiffin (The Woman King), Thomasin McKenzie (Last Night in Soho), Emma Laird (A Haunting In Venice) and Katherine Waterston, who appears in this year’s TIFF title The End We Start From alongside Jodie Comer and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Written by comedian Jimmy Carr in his screenwriting feature debut with Patrick Carr and the Dawson Brothers (The Bubble), Fackham Hall pokes fun at traditional period dramas like Downton Abbey and Gosford Park. The production is described as being “in the tradition of classic joke-a-minute spoof comedies like The Naked Gun series and Airplane!”.
Fiennes Tiffin will play a new porter who embarks on an unlikely relationship with the youngest daughter (McKenzie) of a prominent UK family. At the same time, rivalries are spilling over in the Davenport family, led by Lord and Lady Davenport (Waterston) as they also weather the epic failure of the wedding of their eldest daughter (Laird) to her caddish cousin.
Bafta-nominated director Jim O’Hanlon is attached to direct. Additional casting is underway and principal photography will begin in the UK in early 2024.
The film is a UK-based Equity production which means SAG-AFTRA members working on the production are not bound by the terms of the actors’ strike in the U.S.
Fackham Hall is being produced by Kris Thykier (I Give It A Year, KickAss) and Danny Perkins (Greatest Days), under their joint venture comedy label Mews Films.
Bleecker Street’s Andrew Karpen and Kent Sanderson are executive producing alongside Anonymous Content’s Nick Shumaker and David Levine and Jimmy Carr and Patrick Carr.
The deal was negotiated by Kent Sanderson and Avy Eschenasy on behalf of Bleecker Street with Anonymous Content and CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers.
“The British Film Industry does two things very well. Period drama and comedy. Now we didn’t have time to write two movies, so we’ve had to mash the genres together… I’m just slightly worried that if you say Fackham Hall in a posh English accent it might be misconstrued, hopefully that won’t be a problem,” said Jimmy Carr.
O’Hanlon, who was Bafta-nominated for 2020 Amazon comedy Catastrophe, praised the “brilliant script.”
“Fackham Hall is that rarest of rare hen’s teeth – a genuinely funny, fiendishly clever period comedy which even on the page makes you snort your tea out of several orifices at once, whilst still making you care hugely for the young couple at the centre of all the madness.“
The Veterans’ TIFF slate also includes Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy, starring Cate Blanchett and Aswan Reid which had its world premiere in Cannes and will have its North American premiere at TIFF as well as Return to Silent Hill and Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez which are both currently in post-production.
Fiennes Tiffin is represented by The Artists Partnership, CAA, Vybe Trybe and Johnson, Shapiro, Slewett and Kole. McKenzie is repped by UTA, Untitled Entertainment and Gail Cowan. Waterston by LARK, UTA and Silver Lining Entertainment. Laird by United Agents in the UK, CAA, Anonymous Content, and Yorn, Levine, Barnes, Krintzman, Rubenstein, Kohner, Endlich & Gellman.
O’Hanlon is repped by The Artists Partnership and The Gersh Agency. The Dawson Brothers are repped by Lily Williams at Curtis Brown and Tom Lassally at 3 Arts. Jimmy Carr by Hannah Chambers at Chambers Management.