Caitlin Moran's How To Build A Girl starts shooting

16 July 2018

Critically acclaimed British Director Coky Giedroyc, has begun production on HOW TO BUILD A GIRL; an adaptation by Caitlin Moran of her best selling, semi-autobiographical novel. The coming of age comedy is a Monumental Pictures film produced by Alison Owen and Debra Hayward. Film4 developed the project from the outset with Monumental Pictures and are co-financing the production with Tango. The executive producers are Daniel Battsek, Ollie Madden and Sue Bruce-Smith for Film4, Tim Headington and Lia Buman for Tango, Zygi Kamasa and Emma Berkofsky for Lionsgate and Caitlin Moran. HOW TO BUILD A GIRL is made with the support of BFI Locked Box Initiative; Lionsgate will distribute the film in the UK with Protagonist Pictures handling worldwide sales. Sara Curran brokered the deal for Monumental Pictures. The shoot will take place in the UK this July and August.

HOW TO BUILD A GIRL will star Beanie Feldstein (Lady Bird, Bad Neighbours 2) alongside Alfie Allen (‘Game of Thrones’, the upcoming Jojo Rabbit), Paddy Considine (Journeyman, Pride), Sarah Solemani (Bridget Jones's Baby, ‘Him & Her’), Laurie Kynaston (England Is Mine, ‘Cradle to Grave’), Joanna Scanlan (Pin Cushion, Notes on a Scandal), Arinzé Kene (The Pass), Frank Dillane (In the Heart of the Sea), Tadhg Murphy (‘Guerrilla’) and Ziggy Heath (‘Spies of Warsaw’).

It’s 1993, and there’s only one way for a fat, bright, funny, working-class sixteen year old (Beanie Feldstein) to break out of her tiny, crowded house in Wolverhampton, and go on the somehow noble sex-quest she desires - to reinvent herself as swashbuckling, top-hat-wearing rock critic Dolly Wilde, and explode all over London. The only question is - was Dolly Wilde the right girl to build?

Alison Owen says “We are excited that Caitlin’s brilliant literary heroine is finally making it to the big screen, and can’t think of anybody more inspiring than Beanie to bring Caitlin’s exquisitely funny character to life.” Debra Hayward adds “We’ve been incredibly lucky to add Paddy Considine and Sarah Solemani, as Johanna’s ‘unconventional parents’, to our already stellar cast. And there are more surprises to come.”

Monumental Pictures is a film and television company launched in 2014 by Oscar-nominated and BAFTA winning producers Alison Owen and Debra Hayward. ITV Global Entertainment has a stake in their television shingle, Monumental Television. 2017 saw Hayward and Owen serve as Executive Producers on two 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, and ‘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 children’s classic, Anne of Green Gables. Alison Owen’s previous producing credits include Me Before You, Elizabeth, Saving Mr. Banks, The Other Boleyn Girl, Jane Eyre, Brick Lane and the seven times Emmy award winning ‘Temple Grandin’. Debra Hayward’s producing credits include Mary Queen Of Scots, Bridget Jones’s Baby and Les Misérables. Her Executive Producing credits include I Give It A Year, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Senna.

Coky Giedroyc is a British, critically acclaimed director most recently celebrated for her work on ‘Harlots’ written by Moira Buffini for Monumental Television, Hulu and ITV Encore. In 2016, she was awarded a BAFTA for best director for ‘The Sound of Music Live’, starring Kara Tointon, Julian Ovenden and Alexander Armstrong. Coky set up the award-winning, drama ‘The Hour’, written by Abi Morgan and starring Dominic West, Ben Whishaw and Romola Garai for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe. She was nominated for an International Emmy Award for her work on the BAFTA nominated BBC Drama, ‘The Virgin Queen’. She has also directed multiple episodes of AMC’s ‘The Killing’ as well as ‘Penny Dreadful’ starring Eva Green and Rory Kinnear.

In 2017, alongside ‘Harlots’ Season Two, she directed on Veena Sud’s series ‘Seven Seconds’ for Fox 21/Netflix and two episodes of ‘Gypsy’ for NBCU/Netflix starring Naomi Watts and Billy Crudup. Her other credits include the four-part BBC1 series ‘What Remains’, written by Tony Basgallop, ‘Spies Of Warsaw’, an adaptation of Alan Furst’s novel and ‘Wuthering Heights’ starring Tom Hardy.

Caitlin Moran grew up on a council estate in Wolverhampton, where she was home educated, wore a poncho and had boys throw stones at her whilst calling her ‘a bummer’. She left school at eleven and, aged twelve won the Dillon’s essay competition. At the age of fifteen she wrote her first novel, The Chronicles of Narmo, which won her the Observer’s Young Reporter award. At age seventeen, she was writing for the Observer and the Guardian. By age eighteen she was given her own column in the Times, which became the most-read part of the paper, the satirical celebrity column ‘Celebrity Watch’. At the same time, she became co-presenter of a television programme, Naked City that launched upcoming bands such as Blur, Manic Street Preachers and the Boo Radleys.

Caitlin won the British Press Awards’ Columnist of The Year in 2010 and, in 2011, the BPA’s

Interviewer of the Year and Critic of the Year. Her bestselling memoir, How to be a Woman,

won the Galaxy National Book Awards Book of the Year, the Listener’s Choice category at

The Irish Book Awards and is published in twenty-five languages. Her novel, How to Build a

Girl, was published in July 2014 to critical acclaim, selling in over 25 territories to become an

International, number one bestseller. Moranthology was published in 2015 and her collection of essays, Moranifesto, was published in 2017. Caitlin’s new book, How To Be Famous, has just come out and is number one in the UK charts.

 

NOTES TO EDITORS

ABOUT MONUMENTAL PICTURES

Monumental Pictures is a film and television company launched in 2014 by Oscar-nominated and BAFTA winning producers Alison Owen and Debra Hayward. In the same year, ITV Global took a stake in their television shingle, Monumental Television.

Prior to their partnership, Owen’s credits include 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 served as Executive Producer on films including, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, FROST/NIXON, NANNY McPHEE, ATONEMENT, BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY and PRIDE & PREJUDICE.

2017 saw Hayward and Owen serve as Executive Producers on three 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 children’s classic, Anne of Green Gables. The eight-part series was produced for Netflix and CBC by Northwood Entertainment, in association with Monumental Television.

2018 will see the second seasons of HARLOTS, adding Liv Tyler as wealthy socialite, Lady Fitz, to the already illustrious cast. ANNE WITH AN E will also return on Netflix in 2018. Set for production in autumn 2018 is GHOSTS, a multi-character sitcom created by the lead cast of writer-performers from the award winning Horrible Histories and Yonderland. The series will air on the BBC in 2019.

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.

 

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 Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete, Clio Barnard’s Dark River, Michael Pearce’s Beast, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Rungano Nyoni’s I Am Not a Witch, and Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspotting. Forthcoming releases include Bart Layton’s American Animals, Sebastián Lelio’s Disobedience, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War, 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 Wild Rose and Jim Hosking’s An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn. Films in production or pre-production include Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield, Asif Kapadia’s Maradona, Nick Rowland’s Calm With Horses, Justin Kurzel’s True History of the Kelly Gang, Coky Giedroyc’s adaptation of Caitlin Moran’s How To Build a Girl, and Chaplin from Peter Middleton and James Spinney. 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.

Current successes on release around the world include Cannes 2018 Best Director winner Cold War from Academy Award winner Pawel Pawlikowski, Francis Lee’s BAFTA nominated God’s Own Country, the 2017 Directors’ Fortnight Art Cinema Award Winner The Rider from Chloé Zhao, and Toronto International Film Festival 2017 Official Selection Beast from writer/director Michael Pearce.

In post-production are Vita & Virginia starring Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki, 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 production are Corporate Animals, starring Demi Moore and Ed Helms, Hope Gap starring Annette Bening and Bill Nighy, and My Zoe, from writer/director Julie Delpy, starring alongside Daniel Brühl and Gemma Arterton. 

Forthcoming productions include The Cradle, starring Jack O’Connell and Lily Collins, The Sound of Philadelphia, with Matthias Schoenaerts, Garrett Hedlund and Scoot McNairy, Paramour, directed by Alexandra-Therese Keining and starring Kristin Scott Thomas, and The Education of Fredrick Fitzell, starring Dylan O’Brien and Maika Monroe

 

ABOUT LIONSGATE UK

Lionsgate U.K. is the diversified U.K.-based filmed entertainment arm of Lionsgate (NYSE:LGF), a premier next generation global content leader with a diversified presence in motion picture production and distribution, television programming and syndication, home entertainment, international distribution and sales, branded channel platforms, interactive ventures and games, and location-based entertainment. The company (formerly Redbus Film Distributors) was acquired by Lionsgate in October 2005 and has since established a reputation in the U.K. as a leading producer and distributor and acquirer of commercially successful and critically acclaimed product, recently releasing Rupert Everett’s directorial debut THE HAPPY PRINCE, the documentary McQUEEN, the festival hit ON CHESIL BEACH, THEIR FINEST, HITMAN’S BODYGUARD, BAFTA Nominated FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL and WONDER. Upcoming titles for the 2018 slate include Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon starrer THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME, Otto Bathurt’s ROBIN HOOD, A SIMPLE FAVOUR starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick and Wash Westmorland’s Sundance title COLETTE.

The company’s home entertainment business is an industry leader in box office-to-DVD and box office-to-VOD revenue conversion rates.  Lionsgate handles a prestigious and prolific library of approximately 16,000 motion picture and television titles that is an important source of recurring revenue and serves as a foundation for the growth of the Company's core businesses. The Lionsgate and Summit brands remain synonymous with original, daring, quality entertainment in markets around the world.

 

ABOUT TANGO ENTERTAINMENT

Tango Entertainment opened its doors in January 2017 with the mission to be a nimble and story-driven entertainment company by empowering creators to produce entertaining, subversive content. Tango’s first film, Little Woods, was picked up by Neon after its premiere in the Tribeca Film Festival, the drama is directed by Nia DaCosta with Tessa Thompson and Lily James leading the cast. The company helped finance David Lowery’s upcoming film, Old Man and the Gun with a cast that includes Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek, and Casey Affleck. Fox Searchlight is releasing the film stateside on October 5, 2018.

Currently, Tango is in post- production on Blow the Man Down directed by Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy.  Tango has several more projects in development building towards a diverse and eclectic slate.

Tim Headington and Lia Buman are the principals of Tango.  Tim Headington has been involved in all facets of the entertainment business, financing and producing such films as World War Z, Argo and Hugo. Prior to joining Tango, Lia was the President of Acquisitions at Focus Features and EVP of Acquisitions at FilmDistrict, overseeing such films as Atomic Blonde, Suffragette, Nocturnal Animals, A Monster Calls, Safety Not Guaranteed, Evil Dead, Olympus Has Fallen, Looper and the Insidious franchise.