PRODUCTION BEGINS IN THE U.K. ON KEVIN MACDONALD’S
THRILLER BLACK SEA FOR FOCUS FEATURES AND FILM4;
JUDE LAW CAPTAINS CAST
LONDON, August 8th, 2013 – Two-time Academy Award nominee Jude Law captains the cast
of Black Sea, the suspenseful adventure thriller being directed by Academy Award
winner Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September) and produced by Charles Steel for
Cowboy Films. Black Sea, which will be released in 2014, is co-produced and
co-financed by Focus and Film4. Focus CEO James Schamus and Focus co-CEO Andrew
Karpen made the announcement today.
Focus holds worldwide rights – excluding U.K. free-TV rights, which are held by
Film4 – to the movie. Focus executive vice president, international production
Teresa Moneo is supervising Black Sea for president of production Jeb Brody. Filming
has commenced in the U.K.
Black Sea is being produced by Mr. Macdonald alongside Mr. Steel, who reteam
following Mr. Macdonald’s latest film as director, How I Live Now, starring Saoirse
Ronan and George MacKay, which will be released this fall. Cowboy Films also
produced Mr. Macdonald’s The Last King of Scotland, for which they shared a BAFTA
Award and for which Forest Whitaker won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Film4 has
made four previous movies with Mr. Macdonald, including Touching the Void, The Last
King of Scotland, and the Roman epic adventure The Eagle, also with Focus. Dennis
Kelly, creator of the cult television series Utopia, wrote the original screenplay
for Black Sea.
Black Sea centers on a rogue submarine captain (Mr. Law) who, after being laid off
from a salvage company, pulls together a misfit crew to go after a sunken treasure
rumored to be lost in the depths of the Black Sea. As greed and desperation take
control onboard their claustrophobic vessel, the increasing uncertainty of the
mission causes the men to turn on each other to fight for their own survival.
Joining Mr. Law in the cast are Grigoriy Dobrygin (of How I Ended This Summer),
Konstantin Khabenskiy (Focus’ Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), Sergey Kolesnikov (A
Good Day to Die Hard), Scoot McNairy (Argo), Ben Mendelsohn (Focus’ The Place Beyond
the Pines), Sergey Puskepalis (also of How I Ended This Summer), British Independent
Film Award winner Michael Smiley (Kill List), David Threlfall (Nowhere Boy), and
Jodie Whittaker (Film4’s Venus).
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Director of photography Christopher Ross (Eden Lake) joins the crew along with
production designer Nick Palmer (Red Tails), costume designer Natalie Ward (Focus’
The Debt), and editor Justine Wright (Film4’s The Iron Lady).
Mr. Schamus and Mr. Karpen commented, “With Jude Law and a terrific galley of
actors, audiences will be riveted by the machinations of this crew in Dennis Kelly’s
suspenseful script.”
Tessa Ross, Head of Film4, said, “All of us at Film4 love working with Kevin, and
have done so on many of his wonderful films over the last ten years, since his
extraordinary feature Touching the Void. We’re all very excited to be embarking on
this visceral, underwater thriller with him and with Charles Steel, and all our
friends at Focus.”
Film4, headed by Ms. Ross, is Channel 4 Television’s feature film division. The
Company develops and co-finances film productions and is known for working with the
most innovative talent in the U.K., whether new or established. Film4 developed and
co-financed Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, which won 8 Academy Awards. Film4 has
partnered with Focus Features on such films as Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, for
which star Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe Award; Lone Scherfig’s One Day, starring
Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess; and Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson, starring
Bill Murray and Laura Linney. Film4’s forthcoming releases also include Steve
McQueen’s Twelve Years a Slave, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Michael
Fassbender, and Benedict Cumberbatch; Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, starring
Scarlett Johansson; Lenny Abrahamson’s Frank, starring Michael Fassbender, Domhnall
Gleeson, and Maggie Gyllenhaal; Richard Ayoade’s The Double, starring Jesse
Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska; and Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man, based on the
John le Carré novel and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Cowboy Films is an independent production company whose previous credits include
such feature films as The Last King of Scotland, which won the Academy Award for
Best Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best British Film; Goodbye Charlie Bright; The
Hole; and the documentary features Fire in Babylon and Marley. Cowboy Films most
recently produced How I Live Now. The company’s TV productions include the BAFTA
Award-winning drama Poppy Shakespeare; and Top Boy, which won both the Royal
Television Society and Broadcast Awards, and which begins airing its second series
this month.
