Brontë movie - further news and a website

It was no secret that the Brontë movie schedule had been postponed due to financial problems. Today the Yorkshire Post confirms this. However, it looks like the producers are far from giving up. The film now has a website of its own and - more importantly - the cast remains unchanged since the last time it was updated. The website, however, gives no dates and says nothing regarding the new locations, etc. mentioned in the following article.

EXCLUSIVE: Their novels put Yorkshire's rugged scenery on the map – but a new film of the Brontës could instead show the world the Welsh countryside.

Brontë – chronicling the lives of the famous sisters – could be moved to a more "cost-effective" location after an investor withdrew more than £350,000.

The company behind the £5m film – Film Squared based in Sheffield – said other locations being considered now included Wales and Canada.

Parts of the film were due to be filmed at Haworth, Cannon Hall, near Barnsley, and Brodsworth Hall, near Doncaster, and Scarborough. Not only would the film bring jobs to the region, it would also have a beneficial effect on tourism. Miss Potter, the film charting the life of children's author Beatrix Potter, increased the number of foreign visitors to the Lake District significantly.

The project has also received funding from Screen Yorkshire, which works to promote the region as a location for films, and European cash.

Producer Alistair Maclean-Clark said: "We desperately want to keep the film in Yorkshire. This prestigious project will encompass the very best of Yorkshire – its production has been made possible by local investment. We believe Brontë is set to become another great film building on the current successes of the British film industry – it would be tragic for it to be shot anywhere but Yorkshire."

Film Squared managing director Nick Wild is calling for the Yorkshire business community to rally round to bridge the funding gap. He is urging firms to act quickly as the decision about whether to move filming to another location will be taken in the next four to six weeks.

Mr Wild said: "I am a regional media producer who has been based here for 25 years and the possibility that the film may not be filmed on location in Yorkshire is a double blow to me personally. The last thing we want to do is take it out of the region."

He is in talks with a number of blue chip and private investors and stressed the film would offer them the opportunity to gain a worldwide audience.

It was "an important media project for Yorkshire". It "would be fantastic if the local business community played its part in helping us to make this great film happen in the region".

Andrew McCarthy, deputy director at Brontë Parsonage Museum, said: "A Yorkshire setting would promote the county across the globe and, just as importantly, it would more truly reflect the Brontë story. The Brontës are intimately associated with Haworth and its moorland setting. Their lives and artistic achievements can only be fully understood within the context of the Yorkshire landscape and having waited such a long time for a Brontë biopic it would be a great shame, and a missed opportunity, for it to be filmed elsewhere."

Hugo Heppell, head of production at Screen Yorkshire, said they had been involved with the project all the way for two years.

"It is a challenging and ambitious film and we hope that in a difficult financial climate it will get the funding that it needs. We know how hard the production team have worked to bring this quintessentially Yorkshire story to the big screen and we believe that filming it in Yorkshire would be best for the film," he said.

Mr Heppell said Screen Yorkshire's board would have to review its funding of Brontë if it was decided to film it elsewhere.

Filming, due to start in the spring, will be directed by Emmy and BAFTA award-winning Charles Sturridge, who also produced Brideshead Revisited. For more information visit http://www.brontethemovie.com/ (Kathryn Moore)

If you believe you can seriously help keep the movie Yorkshire-based do by all means get in touch with the production team (contact details on the new website).

Categories: In the News, Movies-DVD-TV