London-based sales outfit Bankside Films has announced its acquisition of This Beautiful Fantastic ahead of next week’s American Film Market.

A modern fairy tale in the vein of Amelie and Finding Neverland, the cast includes rising star Carey Mulligan alongside Tom Wilkinson, Christopher Eccleston, Mackenzie Crook and Joanna Lumley. Further cast will be announced in due course.

Principal photography is due to begin in March 2010 shooting on location in Edinburgh, Scotland and in studio facilities in Cologne, Germany.

This Beautiful Fantastic recently appeared on The Brit List, an annual compilation of the best unproduced screenplays in the UK which is generally regarded as an indicator of future critical favourites. Bankside will be offering the project to distributors for the first time in Santa Monica next week.

Terry Loane will direct from a screenplay written by Simon Aboud. Kami Naghdi of London-based Constance Media will produce with Matt Treadwell as co-producer and Compton Ross and Phil Hunt of Bankside Films as executive producers.

The film will focus on frustrated children’s author Bella Brown, who only leaves her obsessively ordered flat for work at the library. Chronically shy, she has no friends, no family and no life until she falls in with Billy, a hopelessly messy inventor who whirls through the library’s carefully balanced world like a shambolic tornado.

Bankside will handle international sales for foreign territories, and has a co-representation agreement with The Gersh Agency/Untitled Entertainment on the domestic rights.

Topics