Screen Daily is reporting that Carey Mulligan (Wildlife) and Black Panther stars Andy Serkis, Daniel Kaluuya and Martin Freeman have signed on to the voice cast of an animated “radical retelling” of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol.
BAFTA-nominated siblings Jacqui and David Morris (McCullin, Nureyev) are directing the feature from a script by David Morris, with the film opening “on a Victorian family preparing a toy theatre for their annual performance of A Christmas Carol, which the grandmother narrates, and enters the imagination of one of the children in the audience as the cardboard stage and the story transform into a dark fantasy realm, adding lyricism and modern dance to the hallowed tale of redemption.”
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“In A Christmas Carol, Dickens wrote one of literature’s most perfectly constructed stories – a simple and moving tale of redemption that has struck a chord with a worldwide audience, having been translated into almost every conceivable language. With the help of a great cast and crew, we believe that we have succeeded in retelling that story in an innovative way, that faithfully expresses what Dickens was trying to say,” said screenwriter Morris.
“Quickfire is very excited to be involved in this startlingly original but incredibly accessible film,” said James Atherton and Jan Pace of co-financiers Quickfire Films. “David and Jacqui have shown themselves to be masters of original filmmaking which has proven highly successful both critically and commercially.”
In addition to Mulligan, Serkis, Kaluuya and Freeman, A Christmas Carol will also feature Simon Russell Beale (The Death of Stalin), Siân Phillips (I, Claudius), and Leslie Caron (Gigi). The film is slated for release at Christmas 2019.
