Scott will produce and direct Reykjavik

Stewart Mackinnon’s increasingly ambitious UK film and TV outfit Headline Pictures has appointed Christian Baute (ex-Celluloid Dreams and producer of the US remake of Funny Games) as its head of production.

The appointment comes as Headline continues to ramp up on both the feature film and TV side.

“Christian has a unique knowledge and understanding of film production in Europe and has an extraordinary range of contacts not only in Europe but also in the US,” Mackinnon commented of the appointment.

Here in Cannes, Mackinnon has confirmed that producer/director Ridley Scott has boarded Reykjavik, the Cold War drama that Headline is developing with Participant Media.

The film, scripted by Kevin Hood, is about the meeting between US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s which helped bring about the end of the Cold War.

Headline is also pushing ahead with such projects as Peter Pan In Scarlet, which Paul King (Bunny And The Bull) will direct and which BBC Films is backing; Quartet, Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut, also with BBC Films; and The Invisible Woman, scripted by Abi Morgan and also backed by BBC Films.

Headline straddles the film and TV worlds. Among its big TV projects is major international series The Drivers, to which Ridley Scott and Tony Scott are attached as executive producers through Scott Free. Freemantle Media is also on board the project. Based on the book Shelby: The Man, The Cars, The Legend by Wallace A Wyss, the series tells the story of the rise and fall of Enzo Ferrari.

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