Jack O’Connell has joined the cast of 3000 Pictures and Netflix’s adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover!

DEADLINE – EXCLUSIVE: Jack O’Connell and Matthew Duckett have joined Golden Globe Winner Emma Corrin in Lady Chatterley’s Lover for Sony’s 3000 Pictures and Netflix. This will be the first film to be produced under the new partnership where Sony Pictures will offer Netflix a first look at any films it intends to make for streaming. The deal was announced in April and part of that deal allowed Sony to offer Netflix a first look at any films it intends to make directly for streaming or decides later to license for streaming, and Netflix has committed to make a number of those films over the course of the deal. Sources say that while Sony will not distribute the film, Netflix can still choose to have it run theatrically if they please for an awards qualifying run given Elizabeth Gabler, who runs 3000 Pictures, track record with award season pics.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover will be directed by The Mustang helmer Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre. Life of Pi scribe David Magee wrote the script. Academy Award nominee Laurence Mark and Academy Award nominees Pete Czernin and Graham Broadbent of Blueprint Pictures are producing.

Based on the classic D.H. Lawrence novel, a story well ahead of its time, we follow the life of Lady Chatterley, a woman born to a life of wealth and privilege, who soon finds herself married to a man that she eventually falls out of love with. Lady Chatterley engages in a torrid affair with a gamekeeper on their English estate, discovering more desire and intimacy than she thought possible. When she realizes that she has fallen heart and soul, she breaks all traditions of the day and seeks happiness with the man she loves.

Marisa Paiva and Nikki Cooper are the executives overseeing the project for 3000 Pictures.

Best known for his roles in ‘71 and Unbroken, O’Connell recently wrapped filming the BBC’s SAS: Rogue Heroes, a six-part drama based on Ben Macintyre’s book of the same name which charts the formation of the renowned Special Forces unit. He was most recently seen in Andrew Haigh’s five-part AMC/BBC thriller The North Water, portraying a disgraced ex-army surgeon who signs up as ship’s doctor on an ill-fated whaling expedition to the Arctic in the late 1850s. Among other much-admired television roles, O’Connell has also made a name for himself on the silver screen by starring in acclaimed films such as: Money Monster Little Fish and Starred Up.

Jack has been casted in a new BBC six-part series “SAS: Rogue Heroes.”

DEADLINE – The BBC has announced the cast for SAS: Rogue Heroes, Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight’s dramatized account of how Britain’s Special Forces unit was formed in the darkest days of World War Two.

Connor Swindells (Sex Education) will play David Stirling, with Jack O’Connell (The North Water) as Paddy Mayne, Alfie Allen (Game Of Thrones) as Jock Lewes, and Sofia Boutella (Modern Love) as Eve. Dominic West (The Wire) will play Lieutenant Colonel Wrangel Clarke.

Produced by Banijay-owned Kudos, the series also features Amir El Masry (Industry), Theo Barklem-Biggs (Carnival Row), Corin Silva (The Bay), Jacob Ifan (Bang), Dónal Finn (Cursed), Jacob McCarthy (The Last Summer), Michael Schaeffer (Chernobyl), and Miles Jupp (The Great).

SAS: Rogue Heroes centers on Stirling, an eccentric young officer, hospitalized after a training exercise went wrong. Convinced that traditional commando units don’t work, he creates a radical plan that flies in the face of all accepted rules of modern warfare. He fights for permission to recruit the toughest, boldest, and brightest soldiers for a small undercover unit that will create mayhem behind enemy lines.

Knight said: “The people who are depicted and who did such extraordinary things were young, in their 20s, and we have made a conscious decision to cast people of the same age. We enter this project with a spirit of adventure and believe our young and talented actors will do justice to this period of history.”

Production is underway on the six-part series, with Tom Shankland (The Serpent) directing. The drama will be executive produced by Karen Wilson, Martin Haines and Emma Kingsman-Lloyd for Kudos, and Tommy Bulfin for the BBC. Stephen Smallwood is the producer. Banijay Rights is repping the series.

THR – Hope Dickson Leach is directing the family drama, with Protagonist Pictures to shop the pic in Cannes.

Jack O’Connell and Lily Collins are joining The Cradle from The Levelling director Hope Dickson Leach.

O’Connell and Collins will play a couple not ready to expect their first baby as they track down a childhood cradle, only to make a discovery that will change their family forever. Protagonist Pictures will launch the project to international buyers in Cannes.

UTA and CAA are handling North American rights. The Cradle is adapted from the 2009 novel by writer Patrick Somerville, who co-wrote the screenplay with Dickson Leach.

The producer credits are shared by Gail Mutrux and Tore Schmidt for Pretty Pictures. Production on The Cradle is set for summer 2018.

Dickson Leach is repped by UTA and Casarotto Ramsay & Associates. O’Connell is repped by CAA, Conway van Gelder Grant and Sloane Offer Weber & Dern. Collins is repped by CAA, LBI, Definition Entertainment and Sloane Offer Weber & Dern.

DEADLINE – EXCLUSIVE: Jack O’Connell and Laura Dern have been set to star in Trial by Fire, a fact-based drama that Ed Zwick will direct. Oscar-winning Precious scribe Geoffrey Fletcher wrote the script, adapted from the 2009 article in The New Yorker that won David Grann the Polk Award. Zwick will produce through his Bedford Falls banner with Flashlight Films’ Allyn Stewart & Kipp Nelson, and Alex Soros, the latter of whom is financing. Production is set to begin October 2 in Atlanta. Kathryn Dean and Marshall Herskovitz are exec producing and film sales will be represented by Cinetic Media and CAA.

O’Connell stars as Cameron Todd Willingham, a poor, uneducated heavy metal devotee with a violent streak and a criminal record. Convicted of triple homicide in the arson deaths of his three small children, Willingham spent 12 years on death row. Dern co-stars as Elizabeth Gilbert, a Texas housewife who forms an unlikely bond with Willingham and, though facing staggering odds, fights magnificently for his freedom on the basis he was wrongly convicted.

Zwick said he and Stewart separately chased Grann’s story when it was published eight years ago and decided to team. It has been an uphill battle to get this one made, but a number of elements came together all at the right time. “From the moment I read David’s brilliant reporting eight years ago, I have been possessed by this deeply moving, true story of injustice,” Zwick told Deadline. “David Grann has been one of these caught-in-the-roller-of-his-typewriter guys, quietly doing great work, and now all these wonderful things are happening with his stories being made into movies, from Killers of the Flower Moon to the Robert Redford piece Old Man and the Gun. The story was all there, with these two compelling characters. It is a remarkable story about people. Not just capital punishment but justice, which is a very important word right now. It has to have that pull to keep you pushing it up the hill this many years.”

Sadly, Tulip Fever has been pushed again. It will be released sometime later this year.

THE WRAP – The Weinstein Company film “Tulip Fever” has been punted down the release schedule yet again.

The Alicia Vikander drama will not open on Feb. 24 as planned but will be “moved to later in 2017,” a TWC spokesperson told TheWrap.

A specific release date wasn’t given. The film had already been moved once, away from a July 2016 opening where it was expected to enter this year’s awards conversation.

“Tulip Fever” was directed by Justin Chadwick, with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard adapting Deborah Moggach’s acclaimed novel. Alison Owen and Harvey Weinstein served as producers.

Set in 17th century Amsterdam, the film follows a married woman (Vikander) who begins a passionate affair with an artist (Dane DeHaan) hired to paint her portrait. The lovers gamble on the booming market for tulip bulbs as a way to raise money to run away together.

The film has a starry ensemble that includes Oscar winners Christoph Waltz and Judi Dench, as well as Jack O’Connell, Cara Delevingne, Zach Galifianakis, Tom Hollander, Holliday Grainger, David Harewood and Matthew Morrison. The studio cut a trailer for the project last year, which can be viewed below.

While TWC is enjoying some late-in-the-season success with their film “Lion” — which earned six Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Nicole Kidman and Best Supporting Actor for Dev Patel — distribution is a touchy subject at the moment.

The company was hit with a lawsuit last week from a subsidiary of fellow distributor FilmNation for allegedly violating the release terms on their co-production “The Founder.”

FilmNation claims that TWC agreed it would not release any other film within two weeks of the Ray Kroc biopic starring Michael Keaton. TWC indeed wound up rolling out another awards hopeful — Matthew McConaughey’s “Gold” — the weekend after “The Founder” opened in limited release. FilmNation is seeking the most valuable of two settlement options: the full cost of their final prints and advertising budget, or $15 million.

Legal woes aside, we do hope “Tulip Fever” blooms in theaters sometime this year. It’s a reunion of sorts between Weinstein and Stoppard, who swept the Oscars with 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love.”

The nominations for the EE British Academy Film Awards were announced a few days ago. Jack’s short film “Home” has been nominated for British Short Film. The awards will take place on February 12, 2017. Hopefully we will see Jack there!

BRITISH SHORT FILM
CONSUMED Richard John Seymour
HOME Shpat Deda, Afolabi Kuti, Daniel Mulloy, Scott O’Donnell
MOUTH OF HELL Bart Gavigan, Samir Mehanovic, Ailie Smith, Michael Wilson
THE PARTY Farah Abushwesha, Emmet Fleming, Andrea Harkin, Conor MacNeill
STANDBY Jack Hannon, Charlotte Regan

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER – Andrew Haigh is set to direct the film about the late fashion icon, with principal photography to begin in January.
The hotly anticipated Alexander McQueen biopic has found its leading man.

Jack O’Connell (Unbroken, ’71) has been cast as the late fashion designer in the untitled film to be directed by Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years) with Pathe producing.

The script is written by Chris Urch, the award-winning playwright of The Rolling Stone and Land of Our Fathers, and based on the biography Blood Beneath the Skin by Andrew Wilson. The film will explore the creative process of McQueen — who passed away in 2010 — in the months leading up to one of his greatest shows in 2009, providing an intimate portrait of the man behind the global brand.

Damian Jones (The Iron Lady, Belle, Lady in the Van) is producing, with principal photography set to start in January for delivery at the end of 2017.

Pathe will distribute the film in the U.K., France and Switzerland and will handle sales throughout the rest of the world, introducing the film to buyers at this year’s AFM.

Haigh, who saw 45 Years pick up awards in Berlin in 2015 and earn an Oscar nomination for Charlotte Rampling this year, recently wrapped Lean on Pete and is teaming with See-Saw Films and the BBC on a new drama series.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER – The period drama starring Oscar winner Alicia Vikander opposite Dane DeHaan and Christoph Waltz was slated to open July 15.
The long-gestating Weinstein Co. project Tulip Fever won’t be blooming in July as expected.

In the latest shuffle of its release schedule, the Weinstein Co. has pushed the period drama seven months, from a release date of July 15, 2016 to Feb. 24, 2017.

The project, starring Oscar winner Alicia Vikander opposite Dane DeHaan and Christoph Waltz, was shot back in 2014, and has been finished for more than a year and was just nine days away from release when the company announced the push.

Tulip Fever is based on Deborah Moggach’s novel about an artist (DeHaan) who falls in love with a married woman (Vikander) after he’s commissioned by the husband (Waltz) to paint her portrait. Justin Chadwick directed from an adapted script by Tom Stoppard.

The film will open opposite Paramount’s God Particle and Open Road’s Sleepless on its new date.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER – Jack O’Connell will lead the cast of the Steven Soderbergh and Scott Frank limited series.

Jack O’Connell is riding to Netflix.

The Unbroken star has been tapped to topline the streaming giant’s Western drama Godless, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Godless, from Steven Soderbergh and Scott Frank, is set in 1884 and centers on Frank Griffin, a menacing outlaw who is terrorizing the West as he hunts down Roy Goode, his son-like partner-turned-mortal enemy. While Roy hides at Alice Fletcher’s ranch, Frank’s chase leads him to the quiet town of La Belle — that is mysteriously made up of entirely women.

O’Connell will star as Roy, the injured outlaw on the run from his former boss who was orphaned at a young age and was taken in by Griffin who ultimately breaks up a robbery and takes off with the loot, splitting from his father figure after he no longer can stomach his behavior.

For O’Connell, the role marks his first TV foray after his breakout film role as Olympic track star and World War II POW Louis Zamperini in Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken. Before that, his TV credits included Skins and The Runaway. On the big screen, his feature follow-ups have included Money Monster and Tulip Fever. He is repped by CAA, Conway van Gelder Grant in the U.K. and Sloane Offer.

Billed as a limited series, Frank will pen the script, direct and executive produce alongside Soderbergh and Casey Silver.

Jack’s upcoming film “Money Monster” will debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The 69th Festival de Cannes will take place from 11 to 22 May 2016.

“Money Monster” (Jodie Foster, U.S.). George Clooney plays the host of a television financial-advice program taken hostage by an angry viewer (“Unbroken’s” Jack O’Connell), who holds him responsible for a bad stock tip. Julia Roberts also stars as the show’s tough-as-nails producer in a film that brings Foster back to Cannes 30 years after “Taxi Driver” unspooled in competition.