Film and Music Entertainment Beefs Up 2010 Development Slate with ‘Cassandra’, ‘Culture’ and ‘Frog’ alongside screenplays in Progress by Keith English, Judy Morris and Dominic Murphy.

Film and Music Entertainment, the London-based production house headed up by Sam Taylor and Mike Downey have signed up screenwriter/playwright Michelle Lipton to adapt a contemporary updated version of Dorothy Baker’s classic 1962 American novel Cassandra at the Wedding a bittersweet romantic comedy about letting new love begin and old love renew itself .

"Baker’s Cassandra at the Wedding is a book of enduring freshness and insight, and is a very smart romantic comedy at the same time, " says F&ME’s principal, Mike Downey, " it’s profound and complex in an entertaining way, and Michelle Lipton will bring an younger, fresher contemporary adaptation for contemporary audiences."

The film tells the story of Cassandra and Judith, a pair of young, attractive and intelligent twins. Though physically identical, their personalities couldn’t be more different. Cassy is wild and carefree while Jude is quiet and shy. They have looked after each other since birth, but especially so since their mother died. When Jude announces her plans to marry John - a man Cassy hasn’t even met - it comes as a bit of a shock ! The stage is thus set for a bitingly amusing comedy of errors.

Lipton, whose 2007 stage play 2048 was a sell out and critical success, has also been
commissioned to write two drama series for BBC Amazing Grace, in which a refugee takes on the government in a fight to bring her children to the UK, and Cottonopolis, a crime series about a string of abductions and a city spiralling out of control. Lipton is set to deliver the screenplay of Cassandra at the Wedding - in the summer of 2010.

Meanwhile, work continues on Iain M Banks adaptation A Gift from the Culture as director Dominic Murphy moves forward with a draft of the screenplay which should take the film into production in the autumn of this year.

The Culture is a fictional anarchist, socialistic, and utopian society created by Banks (The Wasp Factory) and described by him in several of his novels and shorter fictions. In A Gift from the Culture, we witness an ex-Citizen of the Culture being blackmailed into using a special Culture-only weapon to shoot down a military starship. Murphy is also hard at work on the screenplay of Jesus Christ Airlines.

Ongoing other projects still at the writing phase for prolific F&ME include Julien Temple’s FAKE! , Judy (Happy Feet) Morris’ The Spy Princess. Morris’ adaptation of Nobel Prize winning Australian author’s The Eye Of The Storm for Fred Schepisi has just started shooting in Australia and the debut of commercials writer/director Keith English’s Mercy Street both due for delivery in August 2010. Also F&ME have just commissioned first time screenwriter Derek Corrigan to write Three Brothers, a contemporary gangster story.

Finally - also in late stages of development with a view to an autumn shoot, is Frog Tokyo Zagreb by Antonio Nuic. F&ME co-produced Nuic’s previous features All for Free and Donkey. Frog Zagreb Tokyo is the story of three men on Christmas Eve. Only two men are in, brothers Zeko and Toni. God, family, honesty, courage are subjects of their fight. Bomb’s and razor blades can’t help them, but a story by a Japanese writer comes in very handy. F&ME co-produce with Zagreb-based Propeler Film and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s MaNuFakTura.

Related at http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib30a7315dd82b7c9e6fcc459cd596e6d

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Film and Music Entertainment
Katy Moylan +44776868509