"Persuasion" is the 2022 drama feature, directed by Carrie Cracknell based on the 1817 novel by Jane Austen, starring Dakota Johnson ("Madame Web"), Cosmo Jarvis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Richard E. Grant and Henry Golding, now streaming on Netflix:
"...the family of young Englishwoman 'Anne Elliot', moves to lower expenses and reduce debt by renting their home to an 'Admiral' and his wife.
"The wife's brother, 'Navy Captain Frederick Wentworth', was engaged to Anne in 1806, but the engagement was broken when Anne was 'persuaded' by her friends and family to end their relationship.
"Anne and Captain Wentworth, both single and unattached, meet again after a seven-year separation, setting the scene for many encounters as well as a second, well-considered chance at love and marriage for Anne..."
Click the images to enlarge... ...
"...the family of young Englishwoman 'Anne Elliot', moves to lower expenses and reduce debt by renting their home to an 'Admiral' and his wife.
"The wife's brother, 'Navy Captain Frederick Wentworth', was engaged to Anne in 1806, but the engagement was broken when Anne was 'persuaded' by her friends and family to end their relationship.
"Anne and Captain Wentworth, both single and unattached, meet again after a seven-year separation, setting the scene for many encounters as well as a second, well-considered chance at love and marriage for Anne..."
Click the images to enlarge... ...
- 3/15/2023
- by Unknown
- SneakPeek
From Tom Cruise flying at Mach 10 speeds to Daniel Kaluuya besting a man-eating alien monster, this summer’s biggest films have provided plenty to talk about. As the summer movie season draws to a quiet close, it’s time to look back at some of its most-talked-about hits.
Thanks to the Variety Film Chatter Chart, which partners with Twitter to track engagement and determine each week’s trending titles, fans and industry heads alike can know just what is generating buzz on social media. Here are the 10 titles that led the pack this summer.
10. Bullet Train
Brad Pitt’s action endeavor ranked 10th on the Film Chatter Chart with 344,118 engagements. Thanks to director David Leitch, of “John Wick” and “Hobbs & Shaw” fame, “Bullet Train” delivered an absurdly action-packed adventure outfitted with countless stars. Alongside Pitt, the film’s cast of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Bad Bunny, Joey King, Sandra Bullock,...
Thanks to the Variety Film Chatter Chart, which partners with Twitter to track engagement and determine each week’s trending titles, fans and industry heads alike can know just what is generating buzz on social media. Here are the 10 titles that led the pack this summer.
10. Bullet Train
Brad Pitt’s action endeavor ranked 10th on the Film Chatter Chart with 344,118 engagements. Thanks to director David Leitch, of “John Wick” and “Hobbs & Shaw” fame, “Bullet Train” delivered an absurdly action-packed adventure outfitted with countless stars. Alongside Pitt, the film’s cast of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Bad Bunny, Joey King, Sandra Bullock,...
- 9/8/2022
- by Carson Burton
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Gabriel Labelle (The Fabelmans), Conor Sherry (The Terminal List) and Mika Abdalla (Sex Appeal) will lead the cast of coming-of-age comedy The Snack Shack, which Adam Carter Rehmeier (Dinner in America) wrote and is directing for the collective emerging filmmakers label of MRC Film and T-Street.
The film currently in production in Nebraska is a story about two best friends in 1991 Nebraska City who unexpectedly win the silent auction to run the swimming pool snack shack. The snack shack then becomes the long summer’s epicenter of misdemeanors, personal discovery and budding romance.
Jordan Foley, Ben Cornwell and Nick Smith are producing for Paperclip Ltd, alongside Ben LeClair of T-Street, with Paperclips’ Yeardley Smith serving as executive producer.
“Everyone has the summer that was crucial to their own coming-of-age story. This film explores a beautiful sweet spot, a period in time where kids were still very autonomous and free-range in the summer,...
The film currently in production in Nebraska is a story about two best friends in 1991 Nebraska City who unexpectedly win the silent auction to run the swimming pool snack shack. The snack shack then becomes the long summer’s epicenter of misdemeanors, personal discovery and budding romance.
Jordan Foley, Ben Cornwell and Nick Smith are producing for Paperclip Ltd, alongside Ben LeClair of T-Street, with Paperclips’ Yeardley Smith serving as executive producer.
“Everyone has the summer that was crucial to their own coming-of-age story. This film explores a beautiful sweet spot, a period in time where kids were still very autonomous and free-range in the summer,...
- 9/7/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Netflix’s Persuasion starring Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot and Cosmo Jarvis as Capt. Wentworth has become a very controversial adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel since debuting on Netflix, with many critics and writers already debating the pros and the cons of the movie. However, in my personal opinion as an Afro-Caribbean American Austen fan, there has not been enough discussion of the harm racists and gatekeepers have done with the way they have engaged in discussing this movie.
I personally experienced the wrath of Austen fandom racists during “PineappleGate” and know that the debates over the merits of director Carrie Cracknell’s Persuasion are hiding deeper issues. They also repeat the same patterns.
While the vast majority of good faith critiques by professional critics, as well as fan reactions, stuck to discussing elements of Persuasion that were separate from race, chatter on Facebook and other social media sites...
I personally experienced the wrath of Austen fandom racists during “PineappleGate” and know that the debates over the merits of director Carrie Cracknell’s Persuasion are hiding deeper issues. They also repeat the same patterns.
While the vast majority of good faith critiques by professional critics, as well as fan reactions, stuck to discussing elements of Persuasion that were separate from race, chatter on Facebook and other social media sites...
- 7/17/2022
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
One of the most important things to happen in Persuasion, Carrie Cracknell’s new Netflix adaptation of Jane Austen’s final novel, has already gone down by the time the movie starts. Anne Elliot (Dakota Johnson) had once been in love — and in the enviable position to do something about it. She chose not to. Rather, she was persuaded. The man who had her heart, a sailor named Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis), was of a lower class. Their union would have been imprudent by 19th-century English standards. So she dumped him.
- 7/16/2022
- by K. Austin Collins
- Rollingstone.com
Persuasion Review — Persuasion (2022) Film Review, a movie directed Carrie Cracknell, written by Ron Bass, Alice Victoria Winslow and Jane Austen and starring Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, Henry Golding, Richard E. Grant, Ben Bailey Smith, Yolanda Kettle, Jordan Long, Simon Paisley Day, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Lydia Rose Bewley, Agni Scott, Stewart Scudamore, Mia McKenna-Bruce, [...]
Continue reading: Film Review: Persuasion (2022): Dakota Johnson Stars in a Somewhat Clueless Jane Austen Adaptation...
Continue reading: Film Review: Persuasion (2022): Dakota Johnson Stars in a Somewhat Clueless Jane Austen Adaptation...
- 7/16/2022
- by Thomas Duffy
- Film-Book
Every 10 or 15 years, a new attempt is made to adapt “Persuasion,” Jane Austen’s emotionally nuanced final novel. The latest iteration, directed by Carrie Cracknell and written by Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow, takes significant liberties with language and tone. Austen’s Anne Elliot is a good-natured and competent young woman who is overlooked by her silly family and unhealed from the heartbreak of her former engagement to Captain Wentworth eight years prior.
In the Netflix film, Anne (Dakota Johnson) is a wine-toting klutz who tends to blurt out her thoughts at large dinner parties à la Bridget Jones. When her father Sir Walter (Richard E. Grant) goes into debt, the family moves to a slightly smaller mansion in another town, bringing Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) and another suitor, Mr. Elliot (Henry Golding) back into the fold.
Austen purists will be relieved that most of the original characters (minus Mrs.
In the Netflix film, Anne (Dakota Johnson) is a wine-toting klutz who tends to blurt out her thoughts at large dinner parties à la Bridget Jones. When her father Sir Walter (Richard E. Grant) goes into debt, the family moves to a slightly smaller mansion in another town, bringing Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) and another suitor, Mr. Elliot (Henry Golding) back into the fold.
Austen purists will be relieved that most of the original characters (minus Mrs.
- 7/16/2022
- by Harper Lambert
- The Wrap
Jane Austen is given a modern media twist in the Netflix film “Persuasion,” from first-time feature film director Carrie Cracknell.
Starring Dakota Johnson as Austen heroine Anne Elliott and Cosmo Jarvis as the love of her youth, Frederick Wentworth, the movie stays fairly true to the basic plot of Austen’s beloved final novel, but updates it by having protagonist Anne speak directly to camera. As Anne learns the man whose heart she broke is returning, now a much more socially suitable war-celebrated ship captain, the audience becomes who she turns to as she expresses her internal monologue of feelings, or even for sassy observations about her overly-dramatic younger sister.
“I think the use of the breaking of the fourth wall was something that we tried to be very kind of thoughtful and considered about,” Cracknell, a multi-award-nominated theater director, told TheWrap. “We experimented a lot on set with it.
Starring Dakota Johnson as Austen heroine Anne Elliott and Cosmo Jarvis as the love of her youth, Frederick Wentworth, the movie stays fairly true to the basic plot of Austen’s beloved final novel, but updates it by having protagonist Anne speak directly to camera. As Anne learns the man whose heart she broke is returning, now a much more socially suitable war-celebrated ship captain, the audience becomes who she turns to as she expresses her internal monologue of feelings, or even for sassy observations about her overly-dramatic younger sister.
“I think the use of the breaking of the fourth wall was something that we tried to be very kind of thoughtful and considered about,” Cracknell, a multi-award-nominated theater director, told TheWrap. “We experimented a lot on set with it.
- 7/15/2022
- by Jolie Lash
- The Wrap
Jane Austen completed the manuscript for “Persuasion” in 1816, the year before her death. But even then, more than 200 years ago, she anticipated the conversation Hollywood is having today, putting these words into Captain Harville’s mouth: “I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.”
Anne Elliot — bright, heartbroken and, at the ripe old age of 28, facing the risk of lifelong spinsterhood — naturally agrees, not to Harville’s point that it is woman’s nature (more than man’s) to forget those they’ve loved before, but to the fact that “the pen has been in [men’s] hands,” and thus, the history of literature betrays a gender bias. Two centuries later, the world is still struggling to even that balance,...
Anne Elliot — bright, heartbroken and, at the ripe old age of 28, facing the risk of lifelong spinsterhood — naturally agrees, not to Harville’s point that it is woman’s nature (more than man’s) to forget those they’ve loved before, but to the fact that “the pen has been in [men’s] hands,” and thus, the history of literature betrays a gender bias. Two centuries later, the world is still struggling to even that balance,...
- 7/15/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: MRC Film has named its romance label, led by Elizabeth Cantillon, Bisous Pictures—also announcing the appointment of Sydney Fleischmann as VP, Development and Production.
Bisous Pictures’ first film Persuasion, starring Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, Henry Golding and Richard E. Grant, is an adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, which debuts on Netflix today. Carrie Cracknell (Broadway’s Sea Wall / A Life) directed the film—made with Mad Chance and Fourth and Twenty Eight Films—in her feature debut, from a script by Alice Victoria Winslow and Ron Bass.
Going forward, the label will explore a wide range of stories within the romance genre that are inclusive and expansive, traditional and modern, original and literature based, and real-life stories that serve all audiences. It remains in development on previously announced projects including:
Photos of You, based on Tammy Robinson’s novel, which is being adapted for the screen by Tom Dean. Jenny Gage and Tom Betterton of All This Panic are attached to direct. Pic centers on Ava, who after a devastating diagnosis, breaks off her engagement, decides to throw herself a groom-less wedding, and becomes somewhat of a sensation and voice of empowerment. She discovers that it’s never too late to find the love of your life. 28 Summers, adapted by Allie Hagan. Based on Elin Hilderbrand’s #1 New York Times bestselling novel, 28 Summers explores the agony and romance of a one-weekend-per-year affair, its profound impact on the lovers and the lives of the people around them. The Return, adapted by Tom Dean. Based on Nicholas Sparks’ novel, which spent 22 weeks on bestseller lists, focuses on an injured army doctor who moves into his late grandfather’s home in New Bern, North Carolina, where he encounters two women whose secrets will change the course of his life.
Fleischmann comes to MRC from Duplass Brothers Productions, where she was most recently a development and production executive. She notably served as an executive producer on that company’s HBO anthology series, Room 104.
“We’re proud to unveil our name, Bisous, the french word for kiss, which honors our label’s focus on the romance genre in all its various forms,” said Cantillon. “We also welcome Sydney, a fantastically talented exec, to our team as we continue to expand our label and we cannot wait to introduce our first film, ‘Persuasion,’ to audiences alongside our partners at Netflix.”
MRC Film’s releases have collectively earned more than 6B in worldwide box office and received accolades including 12 Academy Award nominations and 11 Golden Globe noms. Coming up for the company is writer-director Matt Charman’s Netflix film The Mothership, starring Halle Berry. It recently released David Frankel’s Paramount+ dramedy Jerry and Marge Go Large, starring Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening, and has also been behind films like Ted, Knives Out, Baby Driver, Babel and The Lovebirds. MRC has co-financed films including The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, the Peter Rabbit franchise, the second and third installments of Hotel Transylvania, 22 Jump Street, Think Like a Man Too and Fast & Furious 7. It’s also a partner of Deadline’s parent company Penske Media in two joint ventures in publishing and content, where both companies hold significant ownership.
Bisous Pictures’ first film Persuasion, starring Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, Henry Golding and Richard E. Grant, is an adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, which debuts on Netflix today. Carrie Cracknell (Broadway’s Sea Wall / A Life) directed the film—made with Mad Chance and Fourth and Twenty Eight Films—in her feature debut, from a script by Alice Victoria Winslow and Ron Bass.
Going forward, the label will explore a wide range of stories within the romance genre that are inclusive and expansive, traditional and modern, original and literature based, and real-life stories that serve all audiences. It remains in development on previously announced projects including:
Photos of You, based on Tammy Robinson’s novel, which is being adapted for the screen by Tom Dean. Jenny Gage and Tom Betterton of All This Panic are attached to direct. Pic centers on Ava, who after a devastating diagnosis, breaks off her engagement, decides to throw herself a groom-less wedding, and becomes somewhat of a sensation and voice of empowerment. She discovers that it’s never too late to find the love of your life. 28 Summers, adapted by Allie Hagan. Based on Elin Hilderbrand’s #1 New York Times bestselling novel, 28 Summers explores the agony and romance of a one-weekend-per-year affair, its profound impact on the lovers and the lives of the people around them. The Return, adapted by Tom Dean. Based on Nicholas Sparks’ novel, which spent 22 weeks on bestseller lists, focuses on an injured army doctor who moves into his late grandfather’s home in New Bern, North Carolina, where he encounters two women whose secrets will change the course of his life.
Fleischmann comes to MRC from Duplass Brothers Productions, where she was most recently a development and production executive. She notably served as an executive producer on that company’s HBO anthology series, Room 104.
“We’re proud to unveil our name, Bisous, the french word for kiss, which honors our label’s focus on the romance genre in all its various forms,” said Cantillon. “We also welcome Sydney, a fantastically talented exec, to our team as we continue to expand our label and we cannot wait to introduce our first film, ‘Persuasion,’ to audiences alongside our partners at Netflix.”
MRC Film’s releases have collectively earned more than 6B in worldwide box office and received accolades including 12 Academy Award nominations and 11 Golden Globe noms. Coming up for the company is writer-director Matt Charman’s Netflix film The Mothership, starring Halle Berry. It recently released David Frankel’s Paramount+ dramedy Jerry and Marge Go Large, starring Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening, and has also been behind films like Ted, Knives Out, Baby Driver, Babel and The Lovebirds. MRC has co-financed films including The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, the Peter Rabbit franchise, the second and third installments of Hotel Transylvania, 22 Jump Street, Think Like a Man Too and Fast & Furious 7. It’s also a partner of Deadline’s parent company Penske Media in two joint ventures in publishing and content, where both companies hold significant ownership.
- 7/15/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Jane Austen certainly wrote some plucky, sassy protagonists. Anne Elliot was not one of them. The first chapter of “Persuasion,” Austen’s final novel, describes Anne as having “an elegance of mind and sweetness of character.” Anne’s love interest, the dashing Captain Wentworth, later claims there is “no one so proper, so capable as Anne.”
The Anne illustrated in Austen’s novel sounds genteel and gracious. The Anne in Netflix’s “Persuasion,” the first straightforward film adaptation of the novel since 2007, is described similarly by her dearest friends. And yet, perhaps in an attempt to make her more relatable in our current resurgence of messy female characters, she also spends much of the film breaking the fourth wall and cracking wise.
Screenwriters Ron Bass (“My Best Friend’s Wedding”) and Alice Victoria Winslow (“Hot Spot”) have given one of Austen’s more demure heroines the “Fleabag” treatment. Luckily for them,...
The Anne illustrated in Austen’s novel sounds genteel and gracious. The Anne in Netflix’s “Persuasion,” the first straightforward film adaptation of the novel since 2007, is described similarly by her dearest friends. And yet, perhaps in an attempt to make her more relatable in our current resurgence of messy female characters, she also spends much of the film breaking the fourth wall and cracking wise.
Screenwriters Ron Bass (“My Best Friend’s Wedding”) and Alice Victoria Winslow (“Hot Spot”) have given one of Austen’s more demure heroines the “Fleabag” treatment. Luckily for them,...
- 7/11/2022
- by Lena Wilson
- The Wrap
A sea sponge has no nervous system. It has no eyes, ears, or mouth. It can’t physically feel a thing. Yet, step on a sea sponge, and you’ll feel pain. Observe their vivid colors, their intrinsic nooks, and cranes, and you’ll feel awe. Hold them in your hand, and they’ll tickle — maybe you’ll spare a chuckle or two. Carrie Cracknell’s newest adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel “Persuasion” is the very opposite.
Continue reading ‘Persuasion’ Review: Dakota Johnson Stars In A Painfully Dull Take On Jane Austen’s Classic at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Persuasion’ Review: Dakota Johnson Stars In A Painfully Dull Take On Jane Austen’s Classic at The Playlist.
- 7/11/2022
- by Rafaela Sales Ross
- The Playlist
Marvel sequel knocked ‘Minions: The Rise Of Gru’ off the number one spot.
Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross (July 8 - 10) Total gross to date Week 1. Thor: Love And Thunder (Disney) £9.1m £12.3m 1 2. Minions: The Rise Of Gru (Universal)
£4.3m £18.5m 2 3. Elvis (Warner Bros) £1.3m £13.8m 3 4. Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount) £1m £70.6m 7 5. Jurassic World Dominion (Universal) £559,872 £31.7m 5
Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.19
Thor: Love And Thunder shot to the top of the UK-Ireland box office over the weekend, taking £9.1m from 696 locations for Disney – the widest ever release in the UK/Ireland for a Marvel Cinematic Universe title.
This figure is...
Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross (July 8 - 10) Total gross to date Week 1. Thor: Love And Thunder (Disney) £9.1m £12.3m 1 2. Minions: The Rise Of Gru (Universal)
£4.3m £18.5m 2 3. Elvis (Warner Bros) £1.3m £13.8m 3 4. Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount) £1m £70.6m 7 5. Jurassic World Dominion (Universal) £559,872 £31.7m 5
Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.19
Thor: Love And Thunder shot to the top of the UK-Ireland box office over the weekend, taking £9.1m from 696 locations for Disney – the widest ever release in the UK/Ireland for a Marvel Cinematic Universe title.
This figure is...
- 7/11/2022
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
“He’s a 10,” the leading lady enthuses to an older woman about a young man she fancies in this latest screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s final novel — and if that line doesn’t throw you for at least a small loop, there are other mightily anachronistic ingredients in this new Persuasion that may well strike Austen fans, among others, as more than a tad unpersuasive. Breaking down and eradicating period niceties and replacing them with more modern attitudes and phraseology appears to be the central agenda for prominent British theater director Carrie Cracknell in her feature film debut, and while it’s easy to resist some of the cheap-shot modern dialogue that runs through the adaptation by old pro Ron Bass and writer-actress Alice Victoria Winslow, it also shouldn’t be impossible to admit that, since we already have Roger Michell’s outstanding 1995 film adaptation, a cheeky redo might also be welcome,...
- 7/11/2022
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
New releases this weekend include ‘Brian And Charles’ and Julian Assange documentary ‘Ithaka’.
Hoping to storm to the top of the UK-Ireland box office this weekend is Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love And Thunder, which is opening for Disney in 690 locations – making it the widest ever release in the territory from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The fourth film in the Thor series sees Chris Hemsworth return as the Asgardian god, and reunited with Natalie Portman as a super-powered Jane Foster. Together, they must square off a new villain, played by Christian Bale. Tessa Thompson and Russell Crowe also star.
It...
Hoping to storm to the top of the UK-Ireland box office this weekend is Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love And Thunder, which is opening for Disney in 690 locations – making it the widest ever release in the territory from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The fourth film in the Thor series sees Chris Hemsworth return as the Asgardian god, and reunited with Natalie Portman as a super-powered Jane Foster. Together, they must square off a new villain, played by Christian Bale. Tessa Thompson and Russell Crowe also star.
It...
- 7/8/2022
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Jane Austen knew a thing or two about complicated women and the way they move through the world. The author’s iconic bibliography — from “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma” to “Sense and Sensibility,” and those are the just the English class curriculum bangers — has always hinged on indelible heroines and their Regency-era attempts to get their lives in order. These stories are both beholden to their time and place and undeniably universal in their concerns and charms.
Austen’s books have inspired all manner of adaptations on both stage and screen, from the faithful (Ang Lee’s luminous “Sense and Sensibility”) to the lightly loosened and even the straight-up free-wheeling (“Bridget Jones’s Diary”) to the mostly inane (“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”). Austen’s books incisively depict a specific time in British life, but her keen understanding of human interactions and desires can happily be transplanted to a range of stories.
Austen’s books have inspired all manner of adaptations on both stage and screen, from the faithful (Ang Lee’s luminous “Sense and Sensibility”) to the lightly loosened and even the straight-up free-wheeling (“Bridget Jones’s Diary”) to the mostly inane (“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”). Austen’s books incisively depict a specific time in British life, but her keen understanding of human interactions and desires can happily be transplanted to a range of stories.
- 7/8/2022
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Click here to read the full article.
Jane Austen purists will be aghast, but if you go with director Carrie Cracknell’s playful makeover of the author’s ruminative last completed novel into a buoyant Regency rom-com, you could be pleasantly surprised. Freely mixing language lifted from Austen’s prose with distinctly modern words and attitudes — this is a movie in which someone is described as “electrifying” in a pre-electric age — Persuasion is sufficiently bold and consistent with its flagrant liberties to get away with them. It also helps that the novel’s long-suffering protagonist, Anne Elliot, has been given irrepressible spirit and an irreverent sense of irony in Dakota Johnson’s incandescent performance.
It’s easy to argue that Austen’s darkest, most mature novel was never meant to be treated like Emma, but Johnson, in her most lighthearted role to date, makes us complicit in Anne’s wry...
Jane Austen purists will be aghast, but if you go with director Carrie Cracknell’s playful makeover of the author’s ruminative last completed novel into a buoyant Regency rom-com, you could be pleasantly surprised. Freely mixing language lifted from Austen’s prose with distinctly modern words and attitudes — this is a movie in which someone is described as “electrifying” in a pre-electric age — Persuasion is sufficiently bold and consistent with its flagrant liberties to get away with them. It also helps that the novel’s long-suffering protagonist, Anne Elliot, has been given irrepressible spirit and an irreverent sense of irony in Dakota Johnson’s incandescent performance.
It’s easy to argue that Austen’s darkest, most mature novel was never meant to be treated like Emma, but Johnson, in her most lighthearted role to date, makes us complicit in Anne’s wry...
- 7/8/2022
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"Persuasion" is the new drama feature, directed by Carrie Cracknell based on the 1817 novel by Jane Austen, starring Dakota Johnson , Cosmo Jarvis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Richard E. Grant and Henry Golding, streaming July 15, 2022 on Netflix:
"...the family of young Englishwoman 'Anne Elliot', moves to lower expenses and reduce debt by renting their home to an 'Admiral' and his wife.
"The wife's brother, 'Navy Captain Frederick Wentworth', was engaged to Anne in 1806, but the engagement was broken when Anne was 'persuaded' by her friends and family to end their relationship.
"Anne and Captain Wentworth, both single and unattached, meet again after a seven-year separation, setting the scene for many encounters as well as a second, well-considered chance at love and marriage for Anne..."
Click the images to enlarge...
<...
"...the family of young Englishwoman 'Anne Elliot', moves to lower expenses and reduce debt by renting their home to an 'Admiral' and his wife.
"The wife's brother, 'Navy Captain Frederick Wentworth', was engaged to Anne in 1806, but the engagement was broken when Anne was 'persuaded' by her friends and family to end their relationship.
"Anne and Captain Wentworth, both single and unattached, meet again after a seven-year separation, setting the scene for many encounters as well as a second, well-considered chance at love and marriage for Anne..."
Click the images to enlarge...
<...
- 7/5/2022
- by Unknown
- SneakPeek
If Netflix’s goal is to have something for everyone in its film library, then its two biggest original films this month are doing a pretty good job of that. It doesn’t get more different than an adaptation of a beloved Jane Austen novel and a 200 million action thriller about Captain America trying to kill Ryan Gosling, but that’s exactly what Netflix is serving up this month.
The Dakota Johnson-starring “Persuasion” should thrill Austen fans who are burned out on “Pride and Prejudice” adaptations, with director Carrie Cracknell adapting one of the more serious works from the legendary comedic writer. And “The Gray Man” is arguably Netflix’s most serious effort at launching a blockbuster franchise to date, with Marvel helmers Anthony and Joe Russo directing the spy movie that star Rege Jean-Page called “insane.”
In addition to its new originals, Netflix is adding essential works from...
The Dakota Johnson-starring “Persuasion” should thrill Austen fans who are burned out on “Pride and Prejudice” adaptations, with director Carrie Cracknell adapting one of the more serious works from the legendary comedic writer. And “The Gray Man” is arguably Netflix’s most serious effort at launching a blockbuster franchise to date, with Marvel helmers Anthony and Joe Russo directing the spy movie that star Rege Jean-Page called “insane.”
In addition to its new originals, Netflix is adding essential works from...
- 7/1/2022
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
With recent acclaimed roles in “The Lost Daughter” and “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” Dakota Johnson is fast becoming one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actresses. And her 2022 isn’t over yet, as she stars in Carrie Cracknell’s Jane Austen adaptation “Persuasion,” out on Netflix on July 15. For some fans, though, Johnson will always be Anastasia Steele, the college student who falls in with Bdsm-practicing billionaire Jamie Dornan’s Christian Grey in the “Fifty Shades Of Grey” series.
Continue reading Dakota Johnson Talks “Crazy” ’50 Shades’ Drama & Says She “Signed Up To Do A Very Different Version” Of The Film at The Playlist.
Continue reading Dakota Johnson Talks “Crazy” ’50 Shades’ Drama & Says She “Signed Up To Do A Very Different Version” Of The Film at The Playlist.
- 6/29/2022
- by Ned Booth
- The Playlist
Make no mistake: filmmaker and theater director Carrie Cracknell is a Jane Austen super-fan. Like many Brits, she spent her teenage years consuming the beloved author’s work, first at school — her first Austen, assigned by a beloved teacher: “Pride and Prejudice” — followed by a self-assigned journey through the rest of Austen’s oeuvre, plus the requisite repeated watchings of iconic cinematic adaptations. The Jennifer Ehle- and Colin Firth-starring “Pride and Prejudice” miniseries? Cracknell estimates she watched it “seven times, back to back” as a teen.
“I’ve always found the combination of this proto-feminism, of these women trying to make sense of the world that they’re trapped in, but also the romanticism and the kind of utter joy and the warmth of her storytelling, to be a really compelling combination,” Cracknell said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “It was one of the backdrops of growing up for me.
“I’ve always found the combination of this proto-feminism, of these women trying to make sense of the world that they’re trapped in, but also the romanticism and the kind of utter joy and the warmth of her storytelling, to be a really compelling combination,” Cracknell said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “It was one of the backdrops of growing up for me.
- 6/28/2022
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Thanks to shows like “Bridgerton” and “The Gilded Age” (not to mention this year’s Met Gala theme), it seems that we’re entering a bit of a Jane Austen-inspired renaissance — not that fans of the renowned novelist went anywhere. Next up on the list of Regency-era projects is Netflix’s highly anticipated cinematic adaptation of the author’s final novel, “Persuasion,” starring Dakota Johnson.
In late April, the streamer released a set of first-look photos featuring Johnson as heroine Anne Elliot, an overlooked middle daughter who is nonetheless incredibly insightful and clever — if only easily persuaded. Surrounded by her entitled and self-involved relatives, she is once again on her own when faced with the return of the dashing, self-made Captain Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis), with whom she broke off her engagement nearly a decade prior at the behest of those around her deeming it a degrading match.
Also...
In late April, the streamer released a set of first-look photos featuring Johnson as heroine Anne Elliot, an overlooked middle daughter who is nonetheless incredibly insightful and clever — if only easily persuaded. Surrounded by her entitled and self-involved relatives, she is once again on her own when faced with the return of the dashing, self-made Captain Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis), with whom she broke off her engagement nearly a decade prior at the behest of those around her deeming it a degrading match.
Also...
- 6/15/2022
- by Natalie Oganesyan
- The Wrap
Netflix has released the first trailer for “Persuasion,” the upcoming period film starring Dakota Johnson, based on the classic 1817 Jane Austen novel.
Published after Austen’s death, “Persuasion” was the final completed work of the writer, and is considered one of her most mature and sophisticated novels. The story revolves around Anne Elliot (played by Dakota Johnson in the film), an isolated 27-year-old struggling to move on after she broke her engagement with Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis), after being persuaded by family friend Lady Russell (Nikki Amuka-Bird).
After seven years, the two come back into each other’s orbit when Anne’s family rents their home to his sister and her husband. Anne quickly finds herself caught in a love triangle between her former fiancé and her cousin, William Elliot (Henry Golding), who will inherit her father Walter’s (Richard E. Grant) estate. With her friends and family pushing her to be with William,...
Published after Austen’s death, “Persuasion” was the final completed work of the writer, and is considered one of her most mature and sophisticated novels. The story revolves around Anne Elliot (played by Dakota Johnson in the film), an isolated 27-year-old struggling to move on after she broke her engagement with Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis), after being persuaded by family friend Lady Russell (Nikki Amuka-Bird).
After seven years, the two come back into each other’s orbit when Anne’s family rents their home to his sister and her husband. Anne quickly finds herself caught in a love triangle between her former fiancé and her cousin, William Elliot (Henry Golding), who will inherit her father Walter’s (Richard E. Grant) estate. With her friends and family pushing her to be with William,...
- 6/14/2022
- by Wilson Chapman
- Variety Film + TV
Netflix has debuted a new trailer for the latest adaptation of the Jane Austin novel ‘Persuasion’ featuring Dakota Johnson.
Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth – the dashing one she let get away – crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances. Adapted from the Jane Austen novel.
Directed by Carrie Cracknell, the film stars Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Mia McKenna-Bruce with Richard E. Grant and Henry Golding.
Also in trailers – Harry Styles features in first look images for ‘My Policeman’
The film is released in select cinemas nationwide on 8th July and on Netflix from 15th July.
The post “Do I sense a romance brewing?” Netflix drop trailer for ‘Persuasion’ appeared first on HeyUGuys.
Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth – the dashing one she let get away – crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances. Adapted from the Jane Austen novel.
Directed by Carrie Cracknell, the film stars Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Mia McKenna-Bruce with Richard E. Grant and Henry Golding.
Also in trailers – Harry Styles features in first look images for ‘My Policeman’
The film is released in select cinemas nationwide on 8th July and on Netflix from 15th July.
The post “Do I sense a romance brewing?” Netflix drop trailer for ‘Persuasion’ appeared first on HeyUGuys.
- 6/14/2022
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
"Persuasion" is the new drama feature, directed by Carrie Cracknell based on the 1817 published novel by Jane Austen, starring Dakota Johnson , Cosmo Jarvis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Richard E. Grant and Henry Golding, streaming July 15, 2022 on Netflix:
"...the family of young Englishwoman 'Anne Elliot', moves to lower expenses and reduce debt by renting their home to an 'Admiral' and his wife.
"The wife's brother, 'Navy Captain Frederick Wentworth', was engaged to Anne in 1806, but the engagement was broken when Anne was 'persuaded' by her friends and family to end their relationship.
"Anne and Captain Wentworth, both single and unattached, meet again after a seven-year separation, setting the scene for many encounters as well as a second, well-considered chance at love and marriage for Anne..."
Click the images to enlarge... ...
"...the family of young Englishwoman 'Anne Elliot', moves to lower expenses and reduce debt by renting their home to an 'Admiral' and his wife.
"The wife's brother, 'Navy Captain Frederick Wentworth', was engaged to Anne in 1806, but the engagement was broken when Anne was 'persuaded' by her friends and family to end their relationship.
"Anne and Captain Wentworth, both single and unattached, meet again after a seven-year separation, setting the scene for many encounters as well as a second, well-considered chance at love and marriage for Anne..."
Click the images to enlarge... ...
- 6/14/2022
- by Unknown
- SneakPeek
A misunderstood Dakota Johnson trapped in a tumultuous love affair? No, this isn’t the fourth “50 Shades” film
Johnson leads the latest Jane Austen adaptation of “Persuasion” for Netflix, premiering on the streamer July 15. The quiet longing of protagonist Anne Elliot will soon be known stateside, thanks to theater director Carrie Cracknell making her feature directorial debut with the Netflix film.
Cracknell famously directed Jake Gyllenhaal in Broadway’s “Seawall/A Life” and most recently Vanessa Kirby in “Julie” and also helmed 2012 short film “Nora,” commissioned by the Guardian, the Young Vic, and The Space theaters.
“Rain Man” Oscar winner Ron Bass co-wrote the “Persuasion” script with Alice Victoria Winslow.
The official Netflix logline reads: Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot (Johnson) is a non-conforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) — the dashing one she once sent away — crashes back into her life,...
Johnson leads the latest Jane Austen adaptation of “Persuasion” for Netflix, premiering on the streamer July 15. The quiet longing of protagonist Anne Elliot will soon be known stateside, thanks to theater director Carrie Cracknell making her feature directorial debut with the Netflix film.
Cracknell famously directed Jake Gyllenhaal in Broadway’s “Seawall/A Life” and most recently Vanessa Kirby in “Julie” and also helmed 2012 short film “Nora,” commissioned by the Guardian, the Young Vic, and The Space theaters.
“Rain Man” Oscar winner Ron Bass co-wrote the “Persuasion” script with Alice Victoria Winslow.
The official Netflix logline reads: Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot (Johnson) is a non-conforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) — the dashing one she once sent away — crashes back into her life,...
- 6/14/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Uma Thurman (Kill Bill) and Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) have joined the cast of Netflix and Skydance’s anticipated comic book sequel, The Old Guard 2. They’re set to star alongside returning cast members Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Veronica Ngo and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
One of Netflix’s most popular films to date with 186 million hours viewed in its first 28 days of release, The Old Guard debuted on the streamer in July of 2020. The film based on the graphic novel series created by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández followed a covert team of immortal mercenaries that were suddenly exposed, fighting to keep their identity a secret just as an unexpected new member was discovered. Details with regard to the sequel’s plot have thus far been kept under wraps, but the project appears to be gaining momentum, with its first castings since its...
One of Netflix’s most popular films to date with 186 million hours viewed in its first 28 days of release, The Old Guard debuted on the streamer in July of 2020. The film based on the graphic novel series created by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández followed a covert team of immortal mercenaries that were suddenly exposed, fighting to keep their identity a secret just as an unexpected new member was discovered. Details with regard to the sequel’s plot have thus far been kept under wraps, but the project appears to be gaining momentum, with its first castings since its...
- 6/10/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) has signed on for a role in the drama Downtown Owl, from Sony Pictures’ Stage 6 Films, Deadline can confirmed. He’s set to star alongside previously announced cast members including Ed Harris, Vanessa Hudgens, Finn Wittrock, Jack Dylan Grazer, August Blanco Rosenstein and Lily Rabe.
The feature directorial debut of Rabe and Hamish Linklater is based on Chuck Klosterman’s New York Times bestselling novel of the same name. It’s set somewhere in rural North Dakota in 1983, in the fictional town called Owl. There, you won’t find cable or pop culture, but you will find a downtown with a first-rate Chevrolet dealership, three bars and a new high school English teacher whose presence upends the lives of locals, just in time for a white-out blizzard for the ages.
Linklater wrote the script for the project, which was part of the Sundance Institute Creative Producing Summit and Talent Forum.
The feature directorial debut of Rabe and Hamish Linklater is based on Chuck Klosterman’s New York Times bestselling novel of the same name. It’s set somewhere in rural North Dakota in 1983, in the fictional town called Owl. There, you won’t find cable or pop culture, but you will find a downtown with a first-rate Chevrolet dealership, three bars and a new high school English teacher whose presence upends the lives of locals, just in time for a white-out blizzard for the ages.
Linklater wrote the script for the project, which was part of the Sundance Institute Creative Producing Summit and Talent Forum.
- 4/14/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Netflix is ramping up its film entertainment for audiences in 2022 and to celebrate that, the streamer has released a trailer to whet your appetite for what is to come.
Whether you’re looking for a laugh, cry, scream or cheer, Netflix has got an A-list cast for any mood with new movies every week all year.
Get ready for pulse-pounding action with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans in The Gray Man, or an epic sci-fi adventure with Halle Berry in The Mothership. Return to the scene of the crime with Daniel Craig in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out 2, and Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill in Enola Holmes 2. Take in a double feature with Adam Sandler (Hustle and Spaceman), and Jamie Foxx (Day Shift and They Cloned Tyrone), or crack up with comedic duos Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy (You People), Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg (Me Time), and a...
Whether you’re looking for a laugh, cry, scream or cheer, Netflix has got an A-list cast for any mood with new movies every week all year.
Get ready for pulse-pounding action with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans in The Gray Man, or an epic sci-fi adventure with Halle Berry in The Mothership. Return to the scene of the crime with Daniel Craig in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out 2, and Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill in Enola Holmes 2. Take in a double feature with Adam Sandler (Hustle and Spaceman), and Jamie Foxx (Day Shift and They Cloned Tyrone), or crack up with comedic duos Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy (You People), Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg (Me Time), and a...
- 2/4/2022
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
We’re one step closer to finding out whodunnit.
Netflix just revealed a first look at Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out 2,” premiering on the streaming service later this year. While the film has yet to announce a release date, we can certainly expect detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to solve the murder mystery, no matter what the season. Set in Greece, the star-studded sequel boasts an A-list ensemble cast including Ethan Hawke, Dave Bautista, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Jessica Henwick, and “Outer Banks” breakout Madelyn Cline.
Variety reported that “Knives Out 2” is expected to make a fall festival run before its release both in theaters and on Netflix “in the last quarter of 2022.”
Netflix announced in March 2021 that had purchased the rights to the “Knives Out” franchise, with two sequels in the works. The deal reportedly cost upwards of $450 million, marking...
Netflix just revealed a first look at Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out 2,” premiering on the streaming service later this year. While the film has yet to announce a release date, we can certainly expect detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to solve the murder mystery, no matter what the season. Set in Greece, the star-studded sequel boasts an A-list ensemble cast including Ethan Hawke, Dave Bautista, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Jessica Henwick, and “Outer Banks” breakout Madelyn Cline.
Variety reported that “Knives Out 2” is expected to make a fall festival run before its release both in theaters and on Netflix “in the last quarter of 2022.”
Netflix announced in March 2021 that had purchased the rights to the “Knives Out” franchise, with two sequels in the works. The deal reportedly cost upwards of $450 million, marking...
- 2/3/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
It’s that time of year when film awards ballots are going out. Here’s some advice for voters: make sure you see Netflix’s “The Guilty” before voting. It’s a great piece of filmmaking, and Jake Gyllenhaal gives one of the year’s best performances.
However, try not to read about the film. There will be no spoilers in this column, but as Gyllenhaal tells Variety, “It’s important that people approach this movie without too much information.”
Here’s what is safe to report: It takes place in a 911 call center, in a short period of time, with Gyllenhaal’s character Joe Baylor dealing with individuals who are lost, strung out and/or desperate, all while L.A. firefighters are battling a wildfire that complicates everything.
“Guilty” is impressive at any level, but especially considering the degree of difficulty. It was shot in 11 days, with Antoine Fuqua remote-directing from a nearby van,...
However, try not to read about the film. There will be no spoilers in this column, but as Gyllenhaal tells Variety, “It’s important that people approach this movie without too much information.”
Here’s what is safe to report: It takes place in a 911 call center, in a short period of time, with Gyllenhaal’s character Joe Baylor dealing with individuals who are lost, strung out and/or desperate, all while L.A. firefighters are battling a wildfire that complicates everything.
“Guilty” is impressive at any level, but especially considering the degree of difficulty. It was shot in 11 days, with Antoine Fuqua remote-directing from a nearby van,...
- 12/8/2021
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Edward Bluemel (Killing Eve), Lydia Rose Bewley (The Inbetweeners) and Yolanda Kettle (Marcella) have joined the cast of Netflix and MRC’s Jane Austen movie Persuasion, which is now underway in the UK.
Already announced are Dakota Johnson (50 Shades Of Grey), Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians), Cosmo Jarvis (Lady Macbeth), Suki Waterhouse (The Divergent Series: Insurgent), Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Nw), Ben Bailey Smith – aka Doc Brown (The Split), Izuka Hoyle (The Outpost), Mia McKenna-Bruce (Get Even) and Nia Towle (The Hollow).
Persuasion tells the story of Anne Elliot (Johnson), an unconforming woman living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy. Unmarried and 27-years-old, Anne reconnects with a man (Jarvis) she was once persuaded to reject and faces a second chance at love.
The book was the last novel written by Austen, author of classics such as Sense and Sensibility,...
Already announced are Dakota Johnson (50 Shades Of Grey), Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians), Cosmo Jarvis (Lady Macbeth), Suki Waterhouse (The Divergent Series: Insurgent), Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Nw), Ben Bailey Smith – aka Doc Brown (The Split), Izuka Hoyle (The Outpost), Mia McKenna-Bruce (Get Even) and Nia Towle (The Hollow).
Persuasion tells the story of Anne Elliot (Johnson), an unconforming woman living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy. Unmarried and 27-years-old, Anne reconnects with a man (Jarvis) she was once persuaded to reject and faces a second chance at love.
The book was the last novel written by Austen, author of classics such as Sense and Sensibility,...
- 6/4/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
We didn't know how badly we needed a Dakota Johnson-led Netflix adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion until now. On May 5, Variety revealed that Henry Golding would be joining Johnson for the upcoming Netflix film. Although we'd originally expected Golding to play the dashing Captain Wentworth, Deadline reported on May 17 that Cosmo Jarvis had been cast in the role. Poised as a modern retelling of Austen's final novel, the story follows 27-year-old Anne Elliot as she deals with the reality of her family's bankruptcy. As if Anne's life couldn't get any more confusing, her former fiancé, Frederick Wentworth, reenters her life just as the snobbish William Elliot makes his intentions known.
With a screenplay written by Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow and Carrie Cracknell making her directorial debut, Persuasion is set to be a sweeping romantic drama. Rumored to have started fittings and rehearsals ahead of filming this month,...
With a screenplay written by Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow and Carrie Cracknell making her directorial debut, Persuasion is set to be a sweeping romantic drama. Rumored to have started fittings and rehearsals ahead of filming this month,...
- 5/17/2021
- by Grayson Gilcrease
- Popsugar.com
Exclusive: Cosmo Jarvis (Lady Macbeth), Suki Waterhouse (The Divergent Series: Insurgent), Oscar nominee Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) and BAFTA nominee Nikki Amuka-Bird (Nw) are among those joining Dakota Johnson and Henry Golding in Netflix and MRC’s Jane Austen movie Persuasion.
Rising Brit actor Jarvis joins as Captain Frederick Wentworth, the love interest opposite Johnson’s character, Anne Elliot. Golding will play Anne’s cousin. We understand that fittings and rehearsals are underway for an imminent UK shoot.
Also joining will be Ben Bailey Smith – aka Doc Brown (The Split), Izuka Hoyle (The Outpost), Mia McKenna-Bruce (Get Even) and Nia Towle (The Hollow).
Persuasion tells the story of Anne Elliot, an unconforming woman living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy. Unmarried and 27-years-old, Anne reconnects with a man she was once persuaded to reject and faces a second chance at love.
The book...
Rising Brit actor Jarvis joins as Captain Frederick Wentworth, the love interest opposite Johnson’s character, Anne Elliot. Golding will play Anne’s cousin. We understand that fittings and rehearsals are underway for an imminent UK shoot.
Also joining will be Ben Bailey Smith – aka Doc Brown (The Split), Izuka Hoyle (The Outpost), Mia McKenna-Bruce (Get Even) and Nia Towle (The Hollow).
Persuasion tells the story of Anne Elliot, an unconforming woman living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy. Unmarried and 27-years-old, Anne reconnects with a man she was once persuaded to reject and faces a second chance at love.
The book...
- 5/17/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Henry Golding has been cast alongside Dakota Johnson in Netflix’s adaptation of the Jane Austen novel “Persuasion.”
The movie will serve as a modern-day retelling of the romantic drama, centering on the conforming Anne Elliot (Johnson), who lives with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy. When Anne, unmarried at 27-years-old, reconnects with Frederick Wentworth, a man she was once persuaded to reject, she faces a second chance at love.
Golding, who shot to stardom as the heartthrob Nick Young in “Crazy Rich Asians” and later led the romantic comedies “A Simple Favor” and “Last Christmas,” surprisingly has not been cast as the love interest. Instead, he will play Mr. Elliot, the cousin of Johnson’s character. Netflix has not announced the actor who will play Frederick Wentworth.
Carrie Cracknell, known for directing Jake Gyllenhaal in “Sea Wall/ A Life” on Broadway, is stepping behind the camera in her feature directorial debut.
The movie will serve as a modern-day retelling of the romantic drama, centering on the conforming Anne Elliot (Johnson), who lives with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy. When Anne, unmarried at 27-years-old, reconnects with Frederick Wentworth, a man she was once persuaded to reject, she faces a second chance at love.
Golding, who shot to stardom as the heartthrob Nick Young in “Crazy Rich Asians” and later led the romantic comedies “A Simple Favor” and “Last Christmas,” surprisingly has not been cast as the love interest. Instead, he will play Mr. Elliot, the cousin of Johnson’s character. Netflix has not announced the actor who will play Frederick Wentworth.
Carrie Cracknell, known for directing Jake Gyllenhaal in “Sea Wall/ A Life” on Broadway, is stepping behind the camera in her feature directorial debut.
- 5/5/2021
- by Rebecca Rubin
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding will play Mr. Elliot opposite Dakota Johnson’s Anne Elliot in Netflix and MRC’s modern feature take of Jane Austen’s classic novel Persuasion.
In the Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow penned script, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities, living with her snobby family who are on the brink of bankruptcy. When Frederick Wentworth—the dashing one she once sent away—crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances. I hear what attracted Golding to the role was the opportunity to play against type; Mr. Elliot being the callous and classic Austen foil.
As previously announced, Carrie Cracknell, who directed Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge to Tony nominations in 2019 in Sea Wall/ A Life on Broadway, will make her feature directorial debut here with Persuasion.
In the Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow penned script, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities, living with her snobby family who are on the brink of bankruptcy. When Frederick Wentworth—the dashing one she once sent away—crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances. I hear what attracted Golding to the role was the opportunity to play against type; Mr. Elliot being the callous and classic Austen foil.
As previously announced, Carrie Cracknell, who directed Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge to Tony nominations in 2019 in Sea Wall/ A Life on Broadway, will make her feature directorial debut here with Persuasion.
- 5/5/2021
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Jane Austen film and TV adaptations are plentiful. I mean, how many times have we seen projects like “Sense and Sensibility,” “Pride and Prejudice,” and “Emma” brought to life on screen? But even though we’ve seen these stories done a number of times before, it doesn’t mean that new versions can’t be made that pique our interest, such as a new version of “Persuasion” that is being developed at Netflix.
Continue reading ‘Persuasion’: Dakota Johnson To Star In Carrie Cracknell’s Modern Take On The Jane Austen Novel at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Persuasion’: Dakota Johnson To Star In Carrie Cracknell’s Modern Take On The Jane Austen Novel at The Playlist.
- 4/20/2021
- by Charles Barfield
- The Playlist
Dakota Johnson is set to star in Netflix’s retelling of Jane Austen’s novel “Persuasion.”
Carrie Cracknell, known for directing Jake Gyllenhaal in “Sea Wall/ A Life” on Broadway, is stepping behind the camera in her feature directorial debut. Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow have adapted the screenplay.
Described as a “modern, witty approach” to a beloved story, “Persuasion” tells the story of Anne Elliot, an unconforming woman living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy. Unmarried and 27-years-old, Anne reconnects with a man she was once persuaded to reject and faces a second chance at love.
“Persuasion” was the last novel written by Austen, the author of literary classics like “Sense and Sensibility,” “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma,” prior to her death in 1817. The property has been adapted for the screen numerous times, including the 2007 TV movie starring Sally Hawkins.
A separate production of “Persuasion...
Carrie Cracknell, known for directing Jake Gyllenhaal in “Sea Wall/ A Life” on Broadway, is stepping behind the camera in her feature directorial debut. Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow have adapted the screenplay.
Described as a “modern, witty approach” to a beloved story, “Persuasion” tells the story of Anne Elliot, an unconforming woman living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy. Unmarried and 27-years-old, Anne reconnects with a man she was once persuaded to reject and faces a second chance at love.
“Persuasion” was the last novel written by Austen, the author of literary classics like “Sense and Sensibility,” “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma,” prior to her death in 1817. The property has been adapted for the screen numerous times, including the 2007 TV movie starring Sally Hawkins.
A separate production of “Persuasion...
- 4/20/2021
- by Rebecca Rubin
- Variety Film + TV
Dakota Johnson is set to star in “Persuasion,” based on the novel by Jane Austen, it was announced on Tuesday.
Netflix and MRC Film have partnered on the film that will be directed by theater director Carrie Cracknell, who recently directed Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge in “Sea Wall/A Life on Broadway.” “Persuasion” will be her feature film directorial debut. Ron Bass and Alice Victoria are writing the screenplay.
Andrew Lazar and Christina Weiss Lurie are producing, while executive producers are Elizabeth Cantillon via her untitled MRC Film Romance label, Michael Constable and David Fliegel.
According to Netflix, the logline is: “Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth–the dashing one she once sent away–crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart...
Netflix and MRC Film have partnered on the film that will be directed by theater director Carrie Cracknell, who recently directed Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge in “Sea Wall/A Life on Broadway.” “Persuasion” will be her feature film directorial debut. Ron Bass and Alice Victoria are writing the screenplay.
Andrew Lazar and Christina Weiss Lurie are producing, while executive producers are Elizabeth Cantillon via her untitled MRC Film Romance label, Michael Constable and David Fliegel.
According to Netflix, the logline is: “Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth–the dashing one she once sent away–crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart...
- 4/20/2021
- by Beatrice Verhoeven
- The Wrap
Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson will star in Netflix and MRC Film’s modern retelling of Jane Austin’s Persuasion.
Carrie Cracknell, who directed Jake Gyllenhall and Tom Sturridge to Tony nominations last year in Sea Wall/A Life on Broadway, will make her feature directing debut.
In this version of Persuasion, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities, living with her snobby family who are on the brink of bankruptcy. When Frederick Wentworth — the dashing one she once sent away — crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances.
Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow adapted the Austin novel. Andrew Lazar and Christina Weiss Lurie are producing. EPs are Elizabeth Cantillon via her untitled MRC Film Romance label, Michael Constable, David Fliegel.
Johnson recently starred in the drama Our Friend...
Carrie Cracknell, who directed Jake Gyllenhall and Tom Sturridge to Tony nominations last year in Sea Wall/A Life on Broadway, will make her feature directing debut.
In this version of Persuasion, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities, living with her snobby family who are on the brink of bankruptcy. When Frederick Wentworth — the dashing one she once sent away — crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances.
Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow adapted the Austin novel. Andrew Lazar and Christina Weiss Lurie are producing. EPs are Elizabeth Cantillon via her untitled MRC Film Romance label, Michael Constable, David Fliegel.
Johnson recently starred in the drama Our Friend...
- 4/20/2021
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Dakota Johnson has landed the starring role in Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of the Jane Austen novel “Persuasion,” the feature directorial debut of acclaimed theater director Carrie Cracknell. The director most recently worked on Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge’s Tony-nominated performances in the play “Sea Wall/A Life.” The film adaptation is written by “Rain Man” Oscar winner Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow.
The film promises to take a fresh approach to the beloved story. Here’s Netflix’s logline: “Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth—the dashing one she once sent away—crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances.”
Dakota Johnson recently starred in the cancer drama “Our Friend,” released by Gravitas earlier this year.
The film promises to take a fresh approach to the beloved story. Here’s Netflix’s logline: “Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth—the dashing one she once sent away—crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances.”
Dakota Johnson recently starred in the cancer drama “Our Friend,” released by Gravitas earlier this year.
- 4/20/2021
- by Chris Lindahl
- Indiewire
Carrie Cracknell makes feature directing debut.
Dakota Johnson will star for Netflix and MRC Film in Jane Austen adaptation Persuasion, the companies announced on Tuesday (April 20).
Carrie Cracknell, who directed Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge to Tony nominations last year in Sea Wall/ A Life On Broadway, will make her feature directing debut.
Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow adapted the screenplay into a modern take on Austen’s final novel about Anne Elliot, whose family faces bankruptcy and faces a dilemma when old flame Frederick Wentworth comes back into her life.
Andrew Lazar and Christina Weiss Lurie are producing...
Dakota Johnson will star for Netflix and MRC Film in Jane Austen adaptation Persuasion, the companies announced on Tuesday (April 20).
Carrie Cracknell, who directed Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge to Tony nominations last year in Sea Wall/ A Life On Broadway, will make her feature directing debut.
Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow adapted the screenplay into a modern take on Austen’s final novel about Anne Elliot, whose family faces bankruptcy and faces a dilemma when old flame Frederick Wentworth comes back into her life.
Andrew Lazar and Christina Weiss Lurie are producing...
- 4/20/2021
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Dakota Johnson has signed on to star in Persuasion, Netflix and MRC Entertainment’s modern take on the Jane Austen novel.
Theatre director Carrie Cracknell, who directed Jake Gyllenhall and Tom Sturridge to Tony nominations last year in Sea Wall/ A Life on Broadway, will make her feature helming debut with the project. Production is expected to begin in May.
Described by Netflix and MRC as a “modern, witty approach to a beloved story while still remaining true” to the novel, the logline per the companies is thus: “Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is ...
Theatre director Carrie Cracknell, who directed Jake Gyllenhall and Tom Sturridge to Tony nominations last year in Sea Wall/ A Life on Broadway, will make her feature helming debut with the project. Production is expected to begin in May.
Described by Netflix and MRC as a “modern, witty approach to a beloved story while still remaining true” to the novel, the logline per the companies is thus: “Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is ...
- 4/20/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Dakota Johnson has signed on to star in Persuasion, Netflix and MRC Entertainment’s modern take on the Jane Austen novel.
Theater director Carrie Cracknell, who directed Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge to Tony nominations last year in Sea Wall/ A Life on Broadway, will make her feature-helming debut with the project. Production is expected to begin in May.
Described by Netflix and MRC as a “modern, witty approach to a beloved story while still remaining true” to the novel, the logline per the companies is thus: “Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an ...
Theater director Carrie Cracknell, who directed Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge to Tony nominations last year in Sea Wall/ A Life on Broadway, will make her feature-helming debut with the project. Production is expected to begin in May.
Described by Netflix and MRC as a “modern, witty approach to a beloved story while still remaining true” to the novel, the logline per the companies is thus: “Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an ...
- 4/20/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Blame the coronavirus for this year’s drastically reduced roster of eligible Tony Award nominees, and Tony nominators for overlooking at least a few possibilities. Even with only 18 Broadway productions in the running for a 2020 award, feelings were bound to be hurt.
Let’s start with the good news: The list of nominees for the 74th Annual Tony Awards is a solid one, with no noticeable contenders – at least to my eye – sneaking in due to the decreased competition. Good luck to voters parsing their choices for one castmate over another – Sea Wall/A Life‘s Jake Gyllenhaal or Tom Sturridge? Slave Play‘s Ato Blankson-Wood or James Cusati-Moyer, and Chalia La Tour or Annie McNamara? Jagged Little Pill‘s Kathryn Gallagher, Celia Rose Gooding or Lauren Patten?
Of course we’ll never know how the list would be different if Six, West Side Story...
Let’s start with the good news: The list of nominees for the 74th Annual Tony Awards is a solid one, with no noticeable contenders – at least to my eye – sneaking in due to the decreased competition. Good luck to voters parsing their choices for one castmate over another – Sea Wall/A Life‘s Jake Gyllenhaal or Tom Sturridge? Slave Play‘s Ato Blankson-Wood or James Cusati-Moyer, and Chalia La Tour or Annie McNamara? Jagged Little Pill‘s Kathryn Gallagher, Celia Rose Gooding or Lauren Patten?
Of course we’ll never know how the list would be different if Six, West Side Story...
- 10/15/2020
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Audiences moved to tears – actually, moved to sobs – were commonplace throughout last year’s nine-week Broadway run of Sea Wall/A Life, the pair of solo one-act plays starring, respectively, Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal. Directed by Carrie Cracknell, the plays – unconnected except by themes of unthinkable grief and the thin, piano-wire possibility of hope – combined for a powerful evening of theater, winning critical raves and full houses, recouping its $2.8 million investment just two months after its August 2019 opening at the Hudson Theater.
No small part of the production’s success, commercially and artistically, was the casting. Two actors with Hollywood names and Broadway know-how, Gyllenhaal and Sturridge, under Cracknell’s eloquent, immaculately detailed direction, gave performances that cut to the bone.
Sturridge took the stage first, climbing the “sea wall” platform that provides the title. Written by playwright Simon Stephens, the play spotlights Sturridge as Alex, a sweet-natured British twentysomething staggered by the loss of his beloved young daughter and what might or might not be the collapse of his marriage.
Next up was Gyllenhaal in Nick Payne’s A Life. Speaking directly to the audience, as Sturridge had before him, Gyllenhaal played Abe, a man caught between grief over his recently deceased father and awe at his newborn daughter. Both prospects – life without him, life with her – terrify Abe before they fortify him.
In the year since Sea Wall/A Life ended its run last October, much – everything – has changed. Deadline recently asked Gyllenhaal, Sturridge and Cracknell to reflect on their show – one of 18 Broadway productions eligible for the upcoming Tony Award nominations – and what it offered audiences then, and to imagine what it could say to audiences in this grievous time. They shared what they miss most about theater, and what each hopes yet to do, perhaps sooner than you’d think.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Deadline: Sea Wall/A Life has been over for a year now. What stands out as the most prominent memory each of you have of the production?
Carrie Cracknell: With the pandemic, we haven’t been able to gather together at all and I keep thinking back to this sort of profound connection we had in the room. There was something about the directness with which Jake and Tom could speak to the audience, and the feeling of community that we somehow captured every night because of the openness that feels, now, in my memory, so oddly transgressive or just so alive and opposite to my current experience of being in these tiny, tiny groups all the time. That’s the thing that keeps playing through my mind, just how quietly radical it was to have hundreds and hundreds of people joined together in one conversation every night. It feels so very far from where we are.
Tom Sturridge: I don’t know I could say it better. The key thing that haunts me is that direct relationship with the audience. I would literally walk into the theater alongside them, we couldn’t have been more connected, and to think of these buildings and these spaces being dark right now is so bizarre. It’s scary.
Deadline: Jake, you actually had two new productions on Broadway last year – you were a producer on Slave Play. Usually you’d have a chance to reconnect with everyone in the spring because of the Tony Awards and all the craziness and parties that go with them. How disappointing has it been this year?
Jake Gyllenhaal: I think it was just so prolonged. Everyone on Broadway is a fighter so everyone was ready to keep going and to continue until we got pulled back and forced to stop. I don’t know any other business that works as hard and continues to work through almost anything, and it’s really only been stopped by this pandemic. So to me there’s always been this [forward] momentum on Broadway to not pay attention to what once was, and now we’re left without anything we could confidently say is in the future. So we’re looking back and we’re nostalgic. There’s a lot to be missed about the gathering and the people, be it parties for the Tony Awards or the performances, and that is what I miss so deeply.
Sturridge: I very specifically remember it feeling like a forum for healing, and what’s been so frustrating about this period is that we don’t have that forum any more at a time when it’s most vital and needed, a space where we can all come together and think together and exchange consciousness of what we’ve just experienced and been a part of.
Gyllenhaal: There have been numerous times during this period where I felt so grateful to be an artist, so grateful to have storytelling as a job, even though it’s not possible to do right now. I never felt so grateful to have it as my job and to understand its power because of the lack of the opportunity to do it. I will also say, I think there’s a time now where there’s all this development and artists are coming together. There are people who I’ve wanted to speak to that I would never have been able to, but everybody’s talking, you know? Ideas are being exchanged and new things are happening and things I thought I really wanted to do have fallen by the wayside and new things have emerged that actually feel much deeper and closer to my heart.
Cracknell: The thing that strikes me almost daily is that there is no national story, there’s so little narrative in a way that is meaningful, that it doesn’t give people an opportunity to understand the pandemic in any kind of connective way. We’re all isolated, we’re trying to understand it through media but we can’t share or communicate stories around what’s happening. I think more than ever we’re going to go back to making work and ask better questions about why we’re telling the stories we’re telling.
Deadline: Is it possible to have real connection over Zoom?
Sturridge: We definitely lose a lot but at the same time I think one of the extraordinary things about theater is it’s a problem-solving medium, like you have to figure out a way in a small, black space to create Venice with a table and three chairs, and in the same way we now have to figure out ways to create Venice with a laptop. It’s a testament to the ingenuity and creativity and force of personality of the people involved who have to do that while these restrictions are in place.
Gyllenhaal: I think the more you value those interactions the more you’ll fight for them, and the fight really comes from trying to practice patience and trying to fit in a space where that feels right to hold off, because if you really value the theater I think it’s worth waiting for. Any philosophy of theater [holds] that it’s not just the experience of watching the show, it’s the following week, it’s the week before, it’s the experience of buying the tickets, the entire thing. I think the catharsis that we’ll feel, the pride we’ll feel, the excitement we’ll feel will be tenfold because of the amount that audiences have waited for this experience. Speaking for myself, my experience of theater is still happening as I wait for it.
Deadline: Carrie, how difficult is it now to plan what you’re going to do next, especially in theater?
Cracknell: I looked at my slate the other day and I think I have nine projects and none have dates. Normally as a director you might have that many but they all slot into a timeframe, say between say now and 2025 or something, and so you know where to focus your energy and which part of the process you’re on for each project. Obviously at the moment what’s happening is everybody’s just trying to generate things that they love, that feel interesting. What we’re trying to do now is kind of pull together teams, so it’s like who’s the writer I want to work with on this, and get to the point where the piece is ready so that when the theaters reopen we have options. We’re starting to feel a small amount of optimism that we might be able to actually fit projects in the beginning of next year, but it’s so hard to tell, just as it is for every industry. We’re all trying to cook things without too much pressure.
Gyllenhaal: I was headed to London [when the shutdown hit] to do Sunday in the Park with George in the West End and we had to postpone the show, so that is postponed a year and we have every intention of doing it. And then I have coming up some really fun stuff that I can’t really talk about but hopefully will happen just past the new year, and it would be done safely. As much as I talk about patience I still have to work on it and I’m trying to put things up hopefully in February/March, but safely. So there are plans to do a certain type of live performance, is the best way I could say it.
Sturridge: I’m actually doing my first reading of a play tomorrow. It’s quite literally my first theatrical experience since we stepped off stage last year, and I’m really excited about it.
Gyllenhaal: I don’t know if I’m going to be okay with that – doing a show with anybody else but us.
Cracknell: It’s not allowed.
Sturridge: [Laughing] The point being that as we wait for these buildings to open again in a safe way, we’re preparing and we’re going to be ready.
Deadline: Are there any plans for the three of you to work together again? I know you did an Audible book for Sea Wall/A Life, but has there been any talk about filming it or performing it again?
Cracknell: I think something kind of happened at the Hudson Theatre which felt really perfect, like it felt we had made the perfect version. I don’t mean the show was perfect, obviously that would be a ridiculous thing to say, but our experience and the relationship we had with the audience in that room felt so magical that I think we have to come down off that in a way before we think about what the next step is. So I’m sure there will be, and I think we all would love to do something, but we just maybe haven’t worked out yet what that is.
Gyllenhaal: It was such an unlikely combination of people, of words, and it came together in this serendipitous way that was, for lack of a better word, magical. I don’t think we feel like we’ve run out of that and I think there’s something special and I’m sorry to speak for all of us but my observation is that we’re all pretty much down for anything. I would do anything with this group again, including Sea Wall/A Life, which maybe will show itself in a different incarnation. And if it somehow never happens again I think we’d all be, like, okay, that’s the way it’s supposed to happen. But I refuse to not work with these two ever again.
Deadline: So you’d all be amenable to a film version?
Cracknell: I’m really surprised by how moving the Audible version is, like you’re having this very intimate conversation, so I guess if we were going to try and develop it for film that would be the spirit of it. Like, how do we make it feel so interior and direct and open that it would become something really special rather than a sort of filmed theater production. I think the hybrid form is really developing and lots of people are thinking about it at the moment.
Gyllenhaal: If we were going to do this it’d be interesting to see what this material inspires in the authors and the way Carrie sees it and to see if maybe it elicits a whole new idea from what it was, and maybe not even just the thing itself but a new creation, almost like a sequel of sorts or something. I mean, I long for that. I feel like it’s probably terrible for me to say but during this time I’ve longed to find recordings of productions that that closed before I could see them, you know? To hear those voices singing, and see some of those performances, even if they were captured poorly. Not everyone can go to the Lincoln Center archives all at once, you know? I really, truly wish we could continue to show Slave Play right now. I wish people could experience it because it’s so prescient and I think so important. Sea Wall/A Life is too. Just thematically, it’s about grief and about communication and about being open and vulnerable in times when we’re terrified, and how hard it is to love and to be alive.
No small part of the production’s success, commercially and artistically, was the casting. Two actors with Hollywood names and Broadway know-how, Gyllenhaal and Sturridge, under Cracknell’s eloquent, immaculately detailed direction, gave performances that cut to the bone.
Sturridge took the stage first, climbing the “sea wall” platform that provides the title. Written by playwright Simon Stephens, the play spotlights Sturridge as Alex, a sweet-natured British twentysomething staggered by the loss of his beloved young daughter and what might or might not be the collapse of his marriage.
Next up was Gyllenhaal in Nick Payne’s A Life. Speaking directly to the audience, as Sturridge had before him, Gyllenhaal played Abe, a man caught between grief over his recently deceased father and awe at his newborn daughter. Both prospects – life without him, life with her – terrify Abe before they fortify him.
In the year since Sea Wall/A Life ended its run last October, much – everything – has changed. Deadline recently asked Gyllenhaal, Sturridge and Cracknell to reflect on their show – one of 18 Broadway productions eligible for the upcoming Tony Award nominations – and what it offered audiences then, and to imagine what it could say to audiences in this grievous time. They shared what they miss most about theater, and what each hopes yet to do, perhaps sooner than you’d think.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Deadline: Sea Wall/A Life has been over for a year now. What stands out as the most prominent memory each of you have of the production?
Carrie Cracknell: With the pandemic, we haven’t been able to gather together at all and I keep thinking back to this sort of profound connection we had in the room. There was something about the directness with which Jake and Tom could speak to the audience, and the feeling of community that we somehow captured every night because of the openness that feels, now, in my memory, so oddly transgressive or just so alive and opposite to my current experience of being in these tiny, tiny groups all the time. That’s the thing that keeps playing through my mind, just how quietly radical it was to have hundreds and hundreds of people joined together in one conversation every night. It feels so very far from where we are.
Tom Sturridge: I don’t know I could say it better. The key thing that haunts me is that direct relationship with the audience. I would literally walk into the theater alongside them, we couldn’t have been more connected, and to think of these buildings and these spaces being dark right now is so bizarre. It’s scary.
Deadline: Jake, you actually had two new productions on Broadway last year – you were a producer on Slave Play. Usually you’d have a chance to reconnect with everyone in the spring because of the Tony Awards and all the craziness and parties that go with them. How disappointing has it been this year?
Jake Gyllenhaal: I think it was just so prolonged. Everyone on Broadway is a fighter so everyone was ready to keep going and to continue until we got pulled back and forced to stop. I don’t know any other business that works as hard and continues to work through almost anything, and it’s really only been stopped by this pandemic. So to me there’s always been this [forward] momentum on Broadway to not pay attention to what once was, and now we’re left without anything we could confidently say is in the future. So we’re looking back and we’re nostalgic. There’s a lot to be missed about the gathering and the people, be it parties for the Tony Awards or the performances, and that is what I miss so deeply.
Sturridge: I very specifically remember it feeling like a forum for healing, and what’s been so frustrating about this period is that we don’t have that forum any more at a time when it’s most vital and needed, a space where we can all come together and think together and exchange consciousness of what we’ve just experienced and been a part of.
Gyllenhaal: There have been numerous times during this period where I felt so grateful to be an artist, so grateful to have storytelling as a job, even though it’s not possible to do right now. I never felt so grateful to have it as my job and to understand its power because of the lack of the opportunity to do it. I will also say, I think there’s a time now where there’s all this development and artists are coming together. There are people who I’ve wanted to speak to that I would never have been able to, but everybody’s talking, you know? Ideas are being exchanged and new things are happening and things I thought I really wanted to do have fallen by the wayside and new things have emerged that actually feel much deeper and closer to my heart.
Cracknell: The thing that strikes me almost daily is that there is no national story, there’s so little narrative in a way that is meaningful, that it doesn’t give people an opportunity to understand the pandemic in any kind of connective way. We’re all isolated, we’re trying to understand it through media but we can’t share or communicate stories around what’s happening. I think more than ever we’re going to go back to making work and ask better questions about why we’re telling the stories we’re telling.
Deadline: Is it possible to have real connection over Zoom?
Sturridge: We definitely lose a lot but at the same time I think one of the extraordinary things about theater is it’s a problem-solving medium, like you have to figure out a way in a small, black space to create Venice with a table and three chairs, and in the same way we now have to figure out ways to create Venice with a laptop. It’s a testament to the ingenuity and creativity and force of personality of the people involved who have to do that while these restrictions are in place.
Gyllenhaal: I think the more you value those interactions the more you’ll fight for them, and the fight really comes from trying to practice patience and trying to fit in a space where that feels right to hold off, because if you really value the theater I think it’s worth waiting for. Any philosophy of theater [holds] that it’s not just the experience of watching the show, it’s the following week, it’s the week before, it’s the experience of buying the tickets, the entire thing. I think the catharsis that we’ll feel, the pride we’ll feel, the excitement we’ll feel will be tenfold because of the amount that audiences have waited for this experience. Speaking for myself, my experience of theater is still happening as I wait for it.
Deadline: Carrie, how difficult is it now to plan what you’re going to do next, especially in theater?
Cracknell: I looked at my slate the other day and I think I have nine projects and none have dates. Normally as a director you might have that many but they all slot into a timeframe, say between say now and 2025 or something, and so you know where to focus your energy and which part of the process you’re on for each project. Obviously at the moment what’s happening is everybody’s just trying to generate things that they love, that feel interesting. What we’re trying to do now is kind of pull together teams, so it’s like who’s the writer I want to work with on this, and get to the point where the piece is ready so that when the theaters reopen we have options. We’re starting to feel a small amount of optimism that we might be able to actually fit projects in the beginning of next year, but it’s so hard to tell, just as it is for every industry. We’re all trying to cook things without too much pressure.
Gyllenhaal: I was headed to London [when the shutdown hit] to do Sunday in the Park with George in the West End and we had to postpone the show, so that is postponed a year and we have every intention of doing it. And then I have coming up some really fun stuff that I can’t really talk about but hopefully will happen just past the new year, and it would be done safely. As much as I talk about patience I still have to work on it and I’m trying to put things up hopefully in February/March, but safely. So there are plans to do a certain type of live performance, is the best way I could say it.
Sturridge: I’m actually doing my first reading of a play tomorrow. It’s quite literally my first theatrical experience since we stepped off stage last year, and I’m really excited about it.
Gyllenhaal: I don’t know if I’m going to be okay with that – doing a show with anybody else but us.
Cracknell: It’s not allowed.
Sturridge: [Laughing] The point being that as we wait for these buildings to open again in a safe way, we’re preparing and we’re going to be ready.
Deadline: Are there any plans for the three of you to work together again? I know you did an Audible book for Sea Wall/A Life, but has there been any talk about filming it or performing it again?
Cracknell: I think something kind of happened at the Hudson Theatre which felt really perfect, like it felt we had made the perfect version. I don’t mean the show was perfect, obviously that would be a ridiculous thing to say, but our experience and the relationship we had with the audience in that room felt so magical that I think we have to come down off that in a way before we think about what the next step is. So I’m sure there will be, and I think we all would love to do something, but we just maybe haven’t worked out yet what that is.
Gyllenhaal: It was such an unlikely combination of people, of words, and it came together in this serendipitous way that was, for lack of a better word, magical. I don’t think we feel like we’ve run out of that and I think there’s something special and I’m sorry to speak for all of us but my observation is that we’re all pretty much down for anything. I would do anything with this group again, including Sea Wall/A Life, which maybe will show itself in a different incarnation. And if it somehow never happens again I think we’d all be, like, okay, that’s the way it’s supposed to happen. But I refuse to not work with these two ever again.
Deadline: So you’d all be amenable to a film version?
Cracknell: I’m really surprised by how moving the Audible version is, like you’re having this very intimate conversation, so I guess if we were going to try and develop it for film that would be the spirit of it. Like, how do we make it feel so interior and direct and open that it would become something really special rather than a sort of filmed theater production. I think the hybrid form is really developing and lots of people are thinking about it at the moment.
Gyllenhaal: If we were going to do this it’d be interesting to see what this material inspires in the authors and the way Carrie sees it and to see if maybe it elicits a whole new idea from what it was, and maybe not even just the thing itself but a new creation, almost like a sequel of sorts or something. I mean, I long for that. I feel like it’s probably terrible for me to say but during this time I’ve longed to find recordings of productions that that closed before I could see them, you know? To hear those voices singing, and see some of those performances, even if they were captured poorly. Not everyone can go to the Lincoln Center archives all at once, you know? I really, truly wish we could continue to show Slave Play right now. I wish people could experience it because it’s so prescient and I think so important. Sea Wall/A Life is too. Just thematically, it’s about grief and about communication and about being open and vulnerable in times when we’re terrified, and how hard it is to love and to be alive.
- 10/9/2020
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
If you’re confused as to who is actually able to compete for the newly announced virtual Tony Awards this fall, you’re not alone. The Tony Awards Administration Committee announced a new cut off date of February 19, 2020. That means that the 2019-2020 Broadway season was cut incredibly short.
Musical races are most heavily affected by the shortened season. “West Side Story” will have to wait until next year to compete as it opened after the February 19th eligibility cutoff date. Other scheduled revivals of “Caroline, or Change” and “Company” were postponed due to the Broadway shutdown. As such there will be no Revival of a Musical category this year. Other categories, like Best Musical and Director of a Musical, will likely see their number of nominees reduced to three due to a limited number of contenders.
Luckily, there are plenty of plays in contention since many of these non-musical outings premiere in the fall.
Musical races are most heavily affected by the shortened season. “West Side Story” will have to wait until next year to compete as it opened after the February 19th eligibility cutoff date. Other scheduled revivals of “Caroline, or Change” and “Company” were postponed due to the Broadway shutdown. As such there will be no Revival of a Musical category this year. Other categories, like Best Musical and Director of a Musical, will likely see their number of nominees reduced to three due to a limited number of contenders.
Luckily, there are plenty of plays in contention since many of these non-musical outings premiere in the fall.
- 8/29/2020
- by Sam Eckmann
- Gold Derby
The Inheritance, Sea Wall/A Life, Slave Play and Girl From The North Country are among the Broadway nominees of this year’s Drama League Awards, along with a significant shows of Off Broadway productions.
Honoring productions that opened during the Covid-shortened 2019-2020 season, the nominations were announced by Beetlejuice’s Alex Brightman and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer via livestream last night. Voting is currently open for Drama League members through May 22, with winners to be announced via livestream in June.
More from DeadlineWatch: Terrence McNally Video Tribute Set For Drama League Awards Online EventBroadway's 'Moulin Rouge!' Star Aaron Tveit Tests Positive For Covid-19, Symptoms "Very Mild"Broadway's 'Moulin Rouge! The Musical' Cancels Today's Performances "Out Of Abundance Of Caution"; No Positive Tests For Coronavirus - Update
Among the individual performers nominated for the League’s Distinguished Performance Award were Raúl Esparza, David Alan Grier, Jonathan Groff, Jake Gyllenhaal,...
Honoring productions that opened during the Covid-shortened 2019-2020 season, the nominations were announced by Beetlejuice’s Alex Brightman and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer via livestream last night. Voting is currently open for Drama League members through May 22, with winners to be announced via livestream in June.
More from DeadlineWatch: Terrence McNally Video Tribute Set For Drama League Awards Online EventBroadway's 'Moulin Rouge!' Star Aaron Tveit Tests Positive For Covid-19, Symptoms "Very Mild"Broadway's 'Moulin Rouge! The Musical' Cancels Today's Performances "Out Of Abundance Of Caution"; No Positive Tests For Coronavirus - Update
Among the individual performers nominated for the League’s Distinguished Performance Award were Raúl Esparza, David Alan Grier, Jonathan Groff, Jake Gyllenhaal,...
- 5/1/2020
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Sea Wall/A Life, the Broadway production of two solo one-acts starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge became the first show of the 2019-2020 Broadway season to recoup its initial investment, producers said today.
The $2.8 million production, which closed this past Sunday, had a limited engagement of only nine weeks – 74 performances – at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre, and went out on a high note: The final week of performances grossed $854,678, the highest in the show’s run.
Produced by Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories, Ambassador Theatre Group, Seaview Productions, and Benjamin Lowy Productions, Sea Wall/A Life completed a sold-out Off Broadway run at the Public Theater last winter before making the jump to Broadway over the summer. Previews at the Hudson began July 26, with an official opening of Aug. 8, making for a total of 14 previews and 60 regular performances.
Written by Simon Stephens and Nick Payne, with both directed by Carrie Cracknell, the pair of one acts received universal critical acclaim, with the Hudson 96% full, on average, throughout the run.
According to Ambassador Theatre Group, which owns the Hudson, 73% of ticket
buyers were first time Hudson attendees, suggesting an unusually large percentage of young or first-time theater-goers. The producers said that, according to TodayTix figures, about 65% of purchases for the production on that particular platform were made by buyers under 44 years old.
“Simon, Nick, Carrie, Jake, and Tom created a daring and unforgettable piece of art that critics and audiences responded to, with many returning multiple times,” said Riva Marker, producer, president and co-founder (with Gyllenhaal) of Nine Stories. “The great success of Sea Wall/A Life proved that storytelling in its most elemental form – a single actor, alone on stage – can connect with people and create a must-see theatrical experience. Opening on Broadway during the season’s toughest months of summer for a limited run and returning our investment in nine weeks is nothing short of a coup. We are incredibly grateful to the audiences, many first-time theatergoers to Hudson Theatre.”
During previews, Gyllenhaal and Sturridge began hosting weekly talkbacks with audiences on the plays’ topics of “love, faith, family, and loss,” a no-doubt popular attraction given the stars’ popularity. In the production’s final weeks, audience members were invited to share their personal stories, which were then posted on the production’s social media.
Gyllenhaal and Sturridge also recorded Sea Wall/A Life as an Audible Original production, Deadline reported last month, for an upcoming release.
The creative team for Sea Wall/A Life included Laura Jellinek (scenic design), Kaye Voyce (costume design), Christopher Peterson (costume design), Guy Hoare (lighting design), Daniel Kluger (sound design), Luke Halls (projection design), and Stuart Earl (original music).
Sea Wall/A Life was produced on Broadway by Nine Stories, Ambassador Theatre
Group, Seaview Productions, Benjamin Lowy Productions, Lfg Theatrical,
Audible, Gavin Kalin Productions, Glass Half Full Productions, Jacob Langfelder, Brian Moreland, Roth-Manella Productions, Salman Vienn Al-Rashid Friends, Slsm Theatricals, Teresa Tsai in association with Dunetz Restieri Productions, Morwin Schmookler, Jane & Mark Wilf and The Public Theater.
The $2.8 million production, which closed this past Sunday, had a limited engagement of only nine weeks – 74 performances – at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre, and went out on a high note: The final week of performances grossed $854,678, the highest in the show’s run.
Produced by Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories, Ambassador Theatre Group, Seaview Productions, and Benjamin Lowy Productions, Sea Wall/A Life completed a sold-out Off Broadway run at the Public Theater last winter before making the jump to Broadway over the summer. Previews at the Hudson began July 26, with an official opening of Aug. 8, making for a total of 14 previews and 60 regular performances.
Written by Simon Stephens and Nick Payne, with both directed by Carrie Cracknell, the pair of one acts received universal critical acclaim, with the Hudson 96% full, on average, throughout the run.
According to Ambassador Theatre Group, which owns the Hudson, 73% of ticket
buyers were first time Hudson attendees, suggesting an unusually large percentage of young or first-time theater-goers. The producers said that, according to TodayTix figures, about 65% of purchases for the production on that particular platform were made by buyers under 44 years old.
“Simon, Nick, Carrie, Jake, and Tom created a daring and unforgettable piece of art that critics and audiences responded to, with many returning multiple times,” said Riva Marker, producer, president and co-founder (with Gyllenhaal) of Nine Stories. “The great success of Sea Wall/A Life proved that storytelling in its most elemental form – a single actor, alone on stage – can connect with people and create a must-see theatrical experience. Opening on Broadway during the season’s toughest months of summer for a limited run and returning our investment in nine weeks is nothing short of a coup. We are incredibly grateful to the audiences, many first-time theatergoers to Hudson Theatre.”
During previews, Gyllenhaal and Sturridge began hosting weekly talkbacks with audiences on the plays’ topics of “love, faith, family, and loss,” a no-doubt popular attraction given the stars’ popularity. In the production’s final weeks, audience members were invited to share their personal stories, which were then posted on the production’s social media.
Gyllenhaal and Sturridge also recorded Sea Wall/A Life as an Audible Original production, Deadline reported last month, for an upcoming release.
The creative team for Sea Wall/A Life included Laura Jellinek (scenic design), Kaye Voyce (costume design), Christopher Peterson (costume design), Guy Hoare (lighting design), Daniel Kluger (sound design), Luke Halls (projection design), and Stuart Earl (original music).
Sea Wall/A Life was produced on Broadway by Nine Stories, Ambassador Theatre
Group, Seaview Productions, Benjamin Lowy Productions, Lfg Theatrical,
Audible, Gavin Kalin Productions, Glass Half Full Productions, Jacob Langfelder, Brian Moreland, Roth-Manella Productions, Salman Vienn Al-Rashid Friends, Slsm Theatricals, Teresa Tsai in association with Dunetz Restieri Productions, Morwin Schmookler, Jane & Mark Wilf and The Public Theater.
- 10/1/2019
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
This past Sunday (September 29), the Broadway production of “Sea Wall/A Life” concluded its run at the Hudson Theatre. The new play, which consists of two separate, thematically connected monologues, starred Tom Sturridge in “Sea Wall,” written by Tony-winner Simon Stephens (“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”), and Jake Gyllenhaal in “A Life,” penned by Nick Payne, whose 2015 play “Constellations” brought the actor to Broadway for the first time.
Directed by Carrie Cracknell in her Broadway debut, this limited engagement of “Sea Wall/A Life” followed an earlier, successful run with the same cast at the Public Theater. The two monologues both grapple with family, love, and loss: in “Sea Wall,” Alex (Sturridge) describes the tragedy that befalls him while in the south of France; in “A Life,” Abe (Gyllenhaal) describes the death of his father and the birth of his daughter.
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Directed by Carrie Cracknell in her Broadway debut, this limited engagement of “Sea Wall/A Life” followed an earlier, successful run with the same cast at the Public Theater. The two monologues both grapple with family, love, and loss: in “Sea Wall,” Alex (Sturridge) describes the tragedy that befalls him while in the south of France; in “A Life,” Abe (Gyllenhaal) describes the death of his father and the birth of his daughter.
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- 9/30/2019
- by David Buchanan
- Gold Derby
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