The Woman in Black the Movie starring Daniel Radcliffe

Having scared West End audiences for over twenty years at the Fortune Theatre in London, Susan Hill’s terrifying ghost story The Woman in Black is set for a big screen remake.

Hammer Films, the cult British film studio that made stars out of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing with its horror movies such as Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein, is back in production – this time with a hotly anticipated movie version of The Woman In Black.

Now in post-production, the film has been adapted by Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass) and is directed by James Watkins (Eden Lake).

A starry cast includes Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter, Equus), Ciaran Hinds, Janet McTeer and Roger Allam.

CAST LIST

Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Kipps
Ciaran Hinds as Daily
Liz White as Jennet
Janet McTeer as Mrs. Daily
Alisa Khazanova as Mrs. Drablow
Tim McMullan as Mr. Jerome
Roger Allam as Mr. Bentley
Daniel Cerqueira as Keckwick
Shaun Dooley as Fisher
Mary Stockley as Mrs. Fisher
Cathy Sara as Mrs. Jerome
David Burke as PC Collins
Victor McGuire as Gerald Hardy
Lucy May Barker as Nursemaid

LINKS

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £20 on tickets to The Woman in Black at the Fortune Theatre

Hammer Films website

Sunday Times Rich List: Top 2000

The Sunday Times has published the details of its Top 2,000 richest people in the UK, following the publication of its Top 1,000 list in April.

The Top 2,000 list reveals a number of actors, musicians and creatives to have made the annual report, including Guy Ritchie at 1130th place, worth £55m, following the success of his film Sherlock Holmes; Alice in Wonderland’s Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter in 1233th place with £50m; and Celador Films and Slumdog Millionaire backers Paul Smith and Sarah King in 1825th place with £32m.

As revealed in April, Love Never Dies and Phantom composer and The Wizard of Oz producer Andrew Lloyd Webber fell from 52nd to 89th place inthe list with a fortune estimated at £700m. He remains slightly ahead of his long-time collaborator and rival producer and West End theatre owner Cameron Mackintosh (Oliver!, Hair, Les Miserables) who is in 98th place, worth £635m – up £285 from last year.

Billy Elliot composer Elton John was in 348th place with £185m and Sunday’s Tony Awards winner Catherine Zeta Jones and husband Michael Douglas made 371st place with £175m. Lyricist Tim Rice (Evita, Joseph, Jesus Christ Superstar) was in 472nd place with £140m and Old Vic Productions Chief Executive Sally Greene and husband Robert Bourne made the list in 596th place with £110m.

Mamma Mia! producer Judy Craymer came 808th in the list with £80m and Queen band members Brian May, Roger Taylor  and John Deacon all made the Top 1,000, in part due to the success of We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre in London. Riverdance couple Moya Doherty and John McColgan  made 911th place with £72m, up £5m on last year.

RICHEST YOUNG PEOPLE

On the Richest Young People list, actor Daniel Radcliffe came fifth with £42m. He will star in a revival of musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway in 2011. Twilight star Robert Pattinson came in as a new entry in 14th place with £13m, recent Over The Rainbow judge Charlotte Church was in 16th place with £11m, alongside Katherine Jenkins, who earlier this year helped Andrew Lloyd Webber launch his new musical Love Never Dies by releasing a song from the show. Lily Allen was also a new entry, coming in 36th place with £5m. It is believed that Allen is working on the score for a new stage adaptation of Bridget Jones’s Diary to open in London in 2011.

See list of showbusiness people in the list

See list of young people in showbusiness in the list

LINKS:

The Rich List

BROADWAY UPDATE: Spiderman

BROADWAY UPDATE: Reeve Carney, Daniel Radcliffe, Christina Ricci, Lee Aaron Rosen, Douglas Hodge, Jonathan Groff and more…

SPIDER-MAN:

The pain of mounting Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark continues apace. Financial problems have dogged pre-production of the enormous project but it seems that rehearsals will finally begin this summer for a November opening at the Hilton Theatre.

Directed by Julie Taymor (The Lion King) with music by Bono, Alan Cumming dropped out as the Green Goblin, with rumours that Patrick Page (Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas) will take the role.

The latest name attached to play Spidey himself is Reeve Carney, who’s just finished playing Ferdinand in Taymor’s new film version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, alongside Helen Mirren, Alfred Molina, Alan Cumming, Chris Cooper and Ben Whishaw.

The investment in mounting Spider-Man is believed to huge, and the show is having to  rip apart the Hilton Theatre to accommodate the lavish and complex sets.

BROADWAY MONEY:

The Broadway League, Broadway’s trade body, released its biannual report this week on the economic impact of spending by Broadway production companies, theatre operators and visitors drawn to New York by Broadway. The figures come close to $10 billion in the 2008-09 season, which is a whole lot of money.

Charlotte St. Martin, Executive Director of The Broadway League, said that the figures, “remind us of how important Broadway is to tourism.” The majority of the money stemmed from visitors’ spending on hotels, restaurants, shopping and transport. Broadway also supported 84,400 jobs and generated $477.7 million in New York City taxes, according to the report. The increasingly lavish spending by producers on new productions (see above) also boosted the total.

We haven’t yet seen the Society of London Theatre’s recently published West End Theatre Audience Report 2010 to determine if a calculation on the West End Theatre’s economic impact on London has been made, but the last public figure was way back in 1997 in their  Wyndham Report. This tallied the impact at just over £1 billion. Given that box office revenue was over half a billion pounds in 2009 we imagine the economic impact has gone up somewhat since then.

TALENT UPDATE:

Ricci Time: She didn’t have the good sense to get a part in The Addams Family on Broadway (!) so Christina Ricci is making do by joining the Tony nominated play Time Stands Still in September, replacing Alicia Silverstone in the play that also stars Laura Linney. Linney is currently filming her new Showtime TV series The Big C.

Hunk-with-talent Alert: Lee Aaron Rosen has just wowed critics in the Atlantic Theater Company’s new production of English playwright Moira Buffini’s Gabriel at the Linda Gross Theater in New York. The play first premiered at the Soho Theatre in London in 1997. Needless-to-say that Mr Rosen is being pitched as “one to watch” for multiple reasons.

Dan Does Dance: Daniel Radcliffe is putting in the practice for his Broadway role in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, working with a vocal and dance coach in London ahead of rehearsals beginning February 2011. Now that’s forward-planning! The show will be directed by Rob Ashford and co-star Rose Hemingway.

The Mask of Zorba: Antonio Banderas has told WENN that he plans to go back to Broadway next year in a revival of the 1968 Kander and Ebb musical Zorba  – based on Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel Zorba The Greek.

OTHER NEWS:

Hodge Honour: Awards guru Tom O’Neil in the LA Times thinks that Douglas Hodge is a shoo-in for the Best Actor in a Musical Tony award, to be announced in June. Hodge received fabulous notices for his performance as Albin in the Broadway transfer of the Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of La Cage Aux Folles. 

Glad to be Glee: It seems that the spitting and fury over Newsweek’s recent article by arts critic Ramin Setoodeh, arguing that gay actors can’t be taken seriously in straight roles, has finally subsided. Much of Broadway has been up in arms over the article – in which Setoodeh refers to Sean Hayes’ performance in Broadway’s Promises, Promises as “weird seeing Hayes play straight,” and also references Glee’s Jonathan Groff. Glee creator Ryan Murphy waged in calling for an all-out boycott of the magazine for its homophobic opinion. It now seems that Ramin and Ryan have made up. Groff, who is openly gay, will be winging his way to London in the summer to appear alongside Simon Russell-Beale in Deathtrap at the Noel Coward Theatre.

REVIEWS:

Popular theatre blog West End Whingers made a Broadway sojourn recently and posted a great round-up of what to see – and what not.

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