Beanie Feldstein stars in Film4 adaptation of How To Build a Girl

9 May 2018

How to Build a Girl, based on the best-selling Caitlin Moran novel, will start shooting in summer with Beanie Feldstein (recently seen in Greta Gerwig’s award-winning movie Lady Bird) confirmed to play the lead role of Johanna Morrigan.

Also confirmed for the project is Coky Giedroyc, whose TV credits include episodes of The Killing, The Hour, The Sound of Music Live, Harlots, and Good Behaviour, and who will be directing from a screenplay by Caitlin Moran.

It’s 1990. Johanna Morrigan is sixteen, smart, opinionated and overweight. Hormones raging, she is desperate to get out of her home town and make a name for herself – which she does, reinventing herself as Dolly Wilde, bad-ass music critic. Gaining notoriety as an enfant terrible, she has finally figured out how to build a girl – but is this the girl she wanted to build?

The producers describe the lead character as “one of the great female literary icons” on a par with Elizabeth Bennet and Bridget Jones.

Monumental Pictures developed the project with Film4, who also co-finance the film alongside US financier Tango Entertainment. The comedic coming-of-age story will shoot in July on location in the UK. Worldwide sales will be handled by Protagonist Pictures.

Oscar-nominated duo Alison Owen (whose extensive list of credits includes Elizabeth, Saving Mr. Banks, The Other Boleyn Girl, Suffragette) and Debra Hayward (Les Miserables, Mary Queen of Scots, Bridget Jones’s Baby) will produce.

Alison Owen says: “We could not be more excited for Johanna Morrigan to burst onto the big screen. We searched high and low for a girl who could match the boundless wit, sparkle and big heart of Caitlin’s super-heroine and feel incredibly lucky to have found her in the effervescent Beanie Feldstein.”

“HOW TO BUILD A GIRL will be outrageously funny and utterly affecting, even heart-breaking,” adds Debra Hayward. “With Coky Giedroyc at the helm of Caitlin’s swashbuckling script, we are blessed to have a director who can deliver all this in spades.”

An international best-seller, ‘How to Build a Girl’ is the fourth book from broadcaster, TV critic and The Times columnist Moran, published in the UK by Ebury Press and by Harper Collins in the U.S. The book was recently chosen for Emma Watson’s feminist book club, Our Shared Shelf.

Feldstein is represented by WME and Brillstein Entertainment. Giedroyc is represented by UTA in the US and Independent Talent in the UK.

 

Ends

 

 

About Film4

Film4 is Channel 4 Television’s feature film division. Film4 develops and co-finances films and is known for working with the most distinctive and innovative talent in UK and international filmmaking, both new and established.

Film4 has developed and co-financed many of the most successful UK films of recent years, Academy Award®-winners such as Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, Asif Kapadia’s box office record breaking documentary Amy, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire and Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady, in addition to critically-acclaimed award-winners such as Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here, Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster, Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, Chris Morris’s Four Lions, Shane Meadows’ This is England, Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years and David Mackenzie’s Starred Up.

Film4’s recent releases include Clio Barnard’s Dark River, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Rungano Nyoni’s I Am Not a Witch, Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspotting, Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire, Todd Haynes’ Carol and Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette. Forthcoming releases include Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete, Michael Pearce’s Beast, Sebastián Lelio’s Disobedience, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War, John Cameron Mitchell’s How To Talk To Girls At Parties, Jim Hosking’s An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn and Bart Layton’s American Animals. Films in production include Lenny Abrahamson’s The Little Stranger, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, Tinge Krishnan’s Been So Long, Iain Morris’s The Festival, Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, Steve McQueen’s Widows, Stephen Merchant’s Fighting With My Family, Tom Harper’s Country Music and Asif Kapadia’s Maradona.

For further information please visit www.film4productions.com

 

 

About Protagonist Pictures

Protagonist Pictures is an international finance, production and sales company which has a proven track record in outstanding films and commercial successes. Based in the UK, the company handles films from around the world, always maintaining a strong focus on filmmakers with exceptional vision and storytelling skills. 

Protagonist go into Cannes 2018 with Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War screening in competition – it will be released in the US by Amazon Studios. Current successes on release around the world include Francis Lee’s BAFTA nominated God’s Own Country, the 2017 Directors’ Fortnight Art Cinema Award Winner The Rider from Chloé Zhao released by Sony Pictures Classics, Toronto International Film Festival 2017 Official Selection Beast, from writer/director Michael and Richard Loncraine’s Finding Your Feet, currently enjoying strong box office in the UK and Australia, released in the US by 30WEST/Roadside Attractions.

In post-production are Vita & Virginia starring Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki, Kristoffer Nyholm’s Keepers, The Souvenir from Executive Producer Martin Scorsese and directed by Joanna Hogg, zombie comedy Little Monsters starring Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o and Josh Gad, and Juan Cabral’s Two/One starring Boyd Holbrook and Beau Bridges.

In pre-production are Paramour, directed by Alexandra-Therese Keining and starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Off Season starring Jon Hamm from the producers of Baby Driver and The Shape of Water, and Hope Gap starring Annette Bening and Bill Nighy. 

www.protagonistpictures.com

 

 

About Monumental Pictures

Monumental Pictures Ltd. is a film and television company launched in 2014 by Oscar-nominated and BAFTA winning producers Alison Owen and Debra Hayward.

Under her previous banner, Ruby Film & Television, Owen consistently produced award-winning, commercial film and television projects with credits including SAVING MR. BANKS, THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL, JANE EYRE, the seven times Emmy award winning TEMPLE GRANDIN, and the International Emmy award winning SMALL ISLAND.

Hayward produced the Golden Globe winning LES MISÉRABLES with Cameron Mackintosh Limited and Working Title Films. Prior to that, she was the creative driving force behind UK production company, Working Title Films, where she oversaw many of their hit titles, serving as Executive Producer on films including TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, FROST/NIXON, NANNY McPHEE, ATONEMENT, BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY and PRIDE & PREJUDICE.

Prior to Monumental, the producing duo’s last shared credit had been on ELIZABETH I, a film that collected a total of seven Academy Awards® and twelve BAFTA nominations, including a win for Best Picture and which launched Cate Blanchett to international fame. It is female driven vehicles such as this, with commercial heft and artistic integrity, that they carry forward into their Monumental slate.

To date, that slate includes: Emma Donoghue’s FROG MUSIC; a trilogy based on Jackie Collins’ SANTAGELO ten-novel series for Universal Studios; an untitled ADA LOVELACE biopic that will finally bring the mother of computing to the big screen, and an untitled ROE v WADE project, a feature focusing on the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for women to have safe abortions. Other projects to note are a film version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical CATS for Universal Studios, which will reunite Hayward with director Tom Hooper; INSTRUMENTAL the James Rhodes biopic and THE UNIVERSE vs ALEX WOODS, both for BBC Films.

In 2016, Hayward produced the third instalment of the Bridget Jones franchise, BRIDGET JONES’S BABY, starring Renee Zellwegger, Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey. It set a record for the biggest comedy/romantic comedy opening ever in the UK. In the same year, Owen produced ME BEFORE YOU for MGM, directed by Thea Sharrock and starring Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin which made over $200 million worldwide. 2018 will see another collaboration with MGM, THE HUSTLE, starring Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway. In 2015, Owen produced “Suffragette” written by Abi Morgan, directed by Sarah Gavron, with Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson and Meryl Streep starring in an ensemble piece about the Suffragette movement. Set for a 2018 release is MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, produced by Hayward for Focus Features, that sees Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan in the title role and Academy Award nominee Margot Robbie’s Queen Elizabeth I.

As well as continuing to produce successful feature films, the duo also head up the television shingle, Monumental Television. 2017 saw, Hayward and Owen serve as Executive Producers on three returning series: HARLOTS, an eight-part returning series for ITV Encore and Hulu starring Samantha Morton, Lesley Manville and Jessica Brown Findlay, and created by Moira Buffini and Alison Newman. WILL, a ten-part series for TNT. Penned by Craig Pearce and executive produced by Owen, Hayward, Pearce and Shekhar Kapur. Finally, ANNE WITH AN E that saw Hayward and Owen team with Golden Globe-nominee and Emmy Award-winning Breaking Bad alumni Moira Walley-Beckett, to adapt childrens classic, Anne of Green Gables. The eight-part series was produced for Netflix and CBC by Northwood Entertainment, in association with Monumental Television. Second seasons of HARLOTS and ANNE WITH AND E will be on screens in 2018.