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Count me one of the multitudes who adore the Netflix limited series “The Diplomat,” commandeered by “The West Wing” and “Homeland” alumnus Debra Cahn, which just launched Season 2 last week. I gulped down the six episodes as fast as I could.

The delicious center of her series is not the behind-the-scenes diplomacy engaged by two experienced U.S. envoys, Kate Wyler, the current U.S. Ambassador to England (Keri Russell) and her adoring husband Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) — it’s their relationship, from bathroom and bedroom banter to all-out physical warfare, often followed by passionate sex. This married couple play out fascinating male-female power dynamics.

Russell and Sewell display a convincing intimacy that is great fun to watch. I spoke to Sewell on Zoom, and learned a few things you may or may not know about him and the show.

1. He is a respected British stage and television actor. In “The Diplomat,...

Beware Frankenstein Legacy as director Paul Dudbridge (Fear the Invisible Man) reanimates the legend with a brand-new fear-filled period feature, that stars a stellar cast of acting talent and is brought to life on Digital thanks to 101 Films.

England, 1875. A century after Victor Frankenstein’s doomed experiment, his journals have traded hands for decades. Stolen at knifepoint, traded in shadowy back alleys and chased by a shadowy cabal who want them destroyed. Now, in the hands of gifted scientist Millicent Browning (Juliet Aubrey), what darkness is set the befall her?

Millicent’s beloved husband (Philip Martin Brown) is desperately ill with a degenerative disease and she will stop at nothing in her determination to find a cure before it’s too late. Their son William (Matt Barber), a doctor in the local asylum, voices his concerns but she pays no heed.

When her husband kills himself, she finally snaps, disappearing...

Maeve Wiley of Sex Education is known for many things from her ever-changing hair to her cool-girl attitude, but most notably, Maeve is a devout reader. Since the first episode, she has always had a book in her hand from feminist literature to the classics, and consistently makes references to her favorite works. Though these novels may seem like arbitrary details, they may have more depth than casual viewers might think.

Prior to Sex Education's upcoming (and starkly different) season 4, Maeve is notorious at Moordale High for being tough, at times unapproachable, but also incredibly intelligent. She uses her wits to help Otis with their sex therapy business and often offers wisdom to Aimee on her personal problems. However, despite being street-smart and emotionally intelligent, Maeve's intellect is truly rooted in her love of reading.

By having her current reads and book references come up again and again, the show...

Patricia Healey, who was married to singer Engelbert Humperdinck for 56 years and had a strong UK acting career, has died. She was 85 and died Thursday from complications related to Covid-19.

Humperdinck, 84, announced in a social media post shared Friday that his family was “heartbroken over the loss of my darling wife,” who died “surrounded by our children, Louise, Jason, Brad, with Scott on FaceTime.”

“Her earthly limitations no longer hold her down as she is freely running the glorious gardens of Heaven, reunited with so many loved ones,” Humperdinck wrote. “We prayed as a family, blessed her with the water from Lourdes and off she went … ushered into the arms of Jesus with help from the generous heart filled prayers from all around the world.”

Healey had Alzheimer’s disease for more than a decade, Humperdinck said. On Jan. 26 he revealed that he, Healey, their son Jason and two of...

In today’s Global Bulletin, Entertainment One picks up the rights to Australian drama “The Newsreader,” Banijay reorganizes in Iberia, “Downton Abbey” lands on BritBox, Sony Pictures Television hires Jo Porter and Warner Bros. International will distribute Hungry Bear Media’s new game show.

Series

Entertainment One (eOne) has acquired international distribution rights to “The Newsreader,” a new drama series coming to ABC TV in Australia, produced by Werner Film Productions.

Set in the 1980s, the series unspools in a high energy newsroom, turning on the relationship between a young TV reporter and the show’s star female anchor. The cast features several high-profile actors including Anna Torv (“Mindhunter”), Sam Reid (“Lambs of God”), Robert Taylor (“Longmire”), Stephen Peacocke (“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot”), Chai Hansen (“The New Legends of Monkey”) and Marg Downey (“Fast Forward”).

“The Newsreader” is backed by major investments from Screen Australia and the ABC and financed with support from Film Victoria.

In the novel “Middlemarch,” George Eliot praises those of us who do good without getting our fifteen minutes of fame: “…for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number […]

The post A Hidden Life Review: Malick takes us back to the 1940s appeared first on Shockya.com.

“A Hidden Life” comes to Cannes with high expectations. For one, it’s Terrence Malick’s most story-driven film since 2005’s “The New World.” For another, the true-life story of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector who refused to serve in the Nazi war effort, is the kind of powerful narrative that could even resonate with Academy Awards voters. But if the past decade has proven anything at this point, it’s that it’s hard to know what expect from Malick.

Malick won the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2011 for “The Tree of Life,” widely regarded by critics as one of the best films of the 21st century to date. Though they have their fans, his follow-ups haven’t earned the same level of acclaim and devotion. “To the Wonder,” “Knight of Cups,” and “Song to Song” were impressionistic reveries with little plot and lots of poetic voiceover. His...

Fair warning to Christopher Plummer, or any future actor who might try to take on the role of J. Paul Getty on FX’s “Trust” — you’ll have to go through Donald Sutherland first, dead or alive.

The FX series, executive produced by Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, has a three-season plan in place for tracking the story of the Getty family, one that will trip back and forth in time to document different eras. And the 82-year-old Sutherland told IndieWire that given his age, he had “warned” FX’s John Landgraf that if they wanted to ensure that he’d appear in future seasons, they should go ahead and shoot scenes with him now.

Because here’s how he feels about being recast, should the worst happen and he not be able to return: “If I’m dead and there’s a possibility to come back from Heaven — or...

He also starred in All Creatures Great And Small and Sense And Sensibility.

Actor Robert Hardy, best known for his roles in All Creatures Great And Small and Harry Potter, has died aged 91.

His family said Hardy had a “tremendous life” and “a giant career in theatre, television and film spanning more than 70 years”, according to the BBC.

Hardy played senior vet Siegfried Farnon in hit BBC series All Creatures Great And Small from 1978-1990.

He also found a new generation of fans when he was cast as Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter franchise.

Hardy had roles in Little Dorrit (2008), Middlemarch (1994), Sense And Sensibility (1995) and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965).

He played Winston Churchill several times, most famously in Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981), for which he won a Bafta, but also in Bomber Harris (1989) and War And Remembrance (1988) and an episode of Agatha Christie’s Marple (2006).

Speaking at Hay festival, veteran writer, who adapted War & Peace for the BBC, said Victor Hugo’s novel needs a champion

Andrew Davies’s next historical novel adaptation for the BBC will be Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables – but nothing like the “shoddy farrago” of the musical.

The adapter of Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch and most recently War & Peace gave his frank opinion of the stage and film musical to an audience at the second day of the Hay Festival.

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Every week, Vulture faces the big, important questions in entertainment and comes to some creative conclusions. This week we parsed the Oscar nominations, collected the best moments from the Golden Globes, and revisited George Eliot's Middlemarch. You may have read some of these stories below, but you certainly didn’t read them all. We forgive you.Q: What's the big news from the Oscars?A: While there weren't any Ben Affleck–size shockers this season, there were still a number of pleasant surprises, such as Sally Hawkins's Best Supporting Actress nod for her work in Blue Jasmine. For movie critic David Edelstein, the nominations confirmed that this was "one of the most remarkable years ever for lead male performances." To get yourself up to speed, you can listen to the nominees for Best Original Song and stream the nominees for Best Documentary Feature. The full list of Oscar nominees is here.

They're funny and passionate. One of them can even rock a pastel pantsuit. Hadley Freeman hails her female heroes whose accomplishments deserve some serious respect

Betty White

These days, White is mainly known for two things: 1. Being old, and 2. Being funny about it. But there is so much more to her than geriatric self-mockery. Aside from her brilliant performances on The Golden Girls and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, White was one of the first women to take control of her own acting career by co-founding a TV production company in the 1950s. She was also nominated for the first best-actress Emmy in 1950, and her book about this period of her life, Here We Go Again: My Life in Television, is as funny as it is inspirational. Still sharp as a tack in her 10th decade, she is not only a hilarious actor but a hysterical off-the-cuff guest on American talk shows,...

Rufus Sewell was a pin-up in the 1990s, then his career stalled. He tells us about moving to La, giving up drinking and why he can't wait to lose his looks

There was a moment in the mid-1990s when Rufus Sewell's international stardom was assured. Before his 30th birthday, he had starred in two hugely successful TV adaptations, of Middlemarch and Cold Comfort Farm, and taken a lead role in the original production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, alongside Felicity Kendal and Bill Nighy. He would clearly become stupidly famous. But then he… didn't.

"People talk about opportunity knocking," he says, "but the gate was always swinging in the breeze before I got to the door. I was the lead in Interview With The Vampire, until Tom Cruise decided he was interested. I was in The Wings Of The Dove with Uma Thurman, until that got cancelled. I...

Legendary British TV scribe Andrew Davies has been hired to pen a six episode TV mini-series adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic "War and Peace" for The BBC. The project is scheduled to air on BBC One in 2015.

The story will remain based in war-torn 19th century Russia. Many of the philosophical elements are expected to be left out, with the series focusing on the human interactions, romance and family conflicts.

Davies penned the adaptation of the original UK "House of Cards" mini-series and its two sequels, along with film adaptations such as "Bridget Jones' Diary," "The Tailor of Panama," and "Brideshead Revisited".

He has worked on numerous mini-series including 1994's "Middlemarch," 1995's "Pride and Prejudice," 1998's "Vanity Fair," 1999's "Wives and Daughters," 2002's "Tipping the Velvet," 2005's "Bleak House," 2007's "Fanny Hill," 2008's "Little Dorrit," 2008's "Sense and Sensibility" and 2011's "South Riding."

Source: The Radio Times...

What made film-maker Judd Apatow want to be be funny? Or inspired novelist Stephenie Meyer to create a world of vampires? In My Ideal Bookshelf, more than 100 writers and other cultural figures were asked to share the literary journeys that helped them realise their ambitions and find success. Here are four

• What would your 'ideal bookshelf' be, and why?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, novelist: 'All my characters drank ginger beer'

I grew up in a university town in Nigeria. I was an early reader and, what I read as a young child, were mostly British and American books. I was also an early writer. And when I began to write, at about the age of seven – stories in pencil with crayon illustrations, which my poor mother was obligated to read – I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading.

All my characters were white and drank ginger beer, because the...

David Nicholls, author of the hit novel One Day, has always loved Dickens's novel. As the film version is about to be released, he reveals how he set about his adaptation

Read a book at the right age and it will stay with you for life. For some people it's Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, but for me it is Great Expectations. I first read it at 14 or so and, apart from some infatuations with Orwell, Fitzgerald, Salinger and Hardy, it has remained my favourite novel ever since. By some miracle, a story written in the mid-1850s had captured much of how I felt in a small provincial town at the end of the 1970s.

Yet if I saw myself in the book, it wasn't a particularly flattering portrait. It's clear why a young reader might aspire to be Elizabeth Bennet, but who would want to be Pip Pirrip?...

From Captain Mainwaring to Patrick Bateman, positive representations of the banking profession are hardly abundant

Why are there so few positive images of bankers? One reason surely is that the banker exists as a figure on to which we project things we cannot stand about ourselves – how we are mired in acquisitiveness and inflamed by the desire to put our Gucci-loafered foot on the throat of our fellow man or indeed woman. Or maybe it's just me.

Bankers have an even worse reputation than journalists in novels and films. At least us grubby hacks sometimes bring down presidents or topple venal corporations in Hollywood cinema

Bankers are rarely allowed such narrative development. Instead they are often irreversible reptiles, tempting us innocent Adam and Eves into their sick, debauched world where we will max out our credit cards. Think Michael Douglas's Gordon Gekko in Wall Street and his dreary eulogy to avarice: "Greed,...

6'5" British TV and film acting veteran Clive Russell has joined the cast of HBO's "Game of Thrones" for its soon to shoot third season says WinterIsComing.Net. Russell has scored the role of Brynden 'The Blackfish' Tully, Catelyn Stark's uncle and a skilled warrior who becomes a key player in Robb Stark's war effort.

Russell has had a long and distinguished career on the small screen with roles in the likes of "Middlemarch," "Cracker," "Roughnecks," "Neverwhere," "Spaced," "Happiness," "Waking the Dead," "Coronation St," "Merlin," "The Bill," "Jam and Jerusalem" and "Casualty". On the big screen he's appeared in "Sherlock Holmes," "The Wolfman," "The Wicker Tree," "King Arthur," "The 13th Warrior" and "The Power of One"

In other small screen casting news, "Lost" actress Elizabeth Mitchell is returning to the J.J. Abrams fold as she's joined the cast of NBC's "Revolution" reports The Live Feed.

Abrams and "Supernatural" creator Eric Kripke...

Abraham Lincoln: He was our sixteenth president, the Great Emancipator and, of course, he was also a peerless vampire hunter. Oh, sure, that last part might have been glossed over in your high school history book, but that's fine, because the truth will finally be revealed when "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" hits theaters this week.

You don't need to wait four score and seven years to get answers, though, because we have everything there is to know about "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" right now.

Release Date: June 22

Star Power: While "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" doesn't quite have any of today's A-listers, it does have at least two of tomorrow's: Dominic Cooper, who wowed fans in "Captain America: The First Avenger" and critics in "The Devil's Double," and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, whose career arc has been meteoric since "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." Bonus: The film also boasts droopy-eyed cult fave...

Rufus Sewell vowed to give up playing bad guys and cads, then found himself out of work for months. So now he's back – in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – as a 5,000-year-old bloodsucker

Three years ago, Rufus Sewell gave up bad guys for good. After an early career steaming up teatimes in Middlemarch and Cold Comfort Farm, he slipped, in his 30s, into a rut of rotters – cruel toffs on horseback in films such as A Knight's Tale, The Legend of Zorro and Tristan and Isolde. At 40, he renounced them for better men. Men with names like Tom Builder (from HBO's The Pillars of the Earth) and Dr Jacob Hood (police procedural Eleventh Hour), and Zen, the cool Italian detective from the Michael Dibdin books adapted for the BBC.

Next week Sewell, now 44, can be seen as "Adam, lead vampire" in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a 3D film from Timur Bekmambetov,...

Kevin Spacey begins his run as the deranged titular king in "Richard III" tonight at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Directed by Sam Mendes, the play reunites the actor and director, who previously worked together on "American Beauty," a film that earned them both Academy Awards.

"Richard III" is the final production in The Bridge Project, a collaboration between Bam, The Old Vic and Neal Street theaters that launched in 2009 with Mendes' staging of "The Winter's Tale" and "The Cherry Orchard," and continued in 2010 with "As You Like It" and "The Tempest," also by Mendes.

"Richard III" completed its run at The Old Vic in 2011 and embarked on an international tour later that year, including stops in Hong Kong, Istanbul, Beijing, Sydney, Doha and San Francisco.

The play has received solid reviews abroad -- Michael Billington at the Guardian called it "a beautifully clear, coherent modern-dress production,...

Full listing of Game of Thrones Season 2 New Characters and Actors. Major and minor characters for Game of Thrones: Season 2 have been casting for months now. We have compiled a list of them all from different sources so that you will know what characters will be in Season 2 of HBO‘s Game of Thrones and who would be playing them. There are major spoilers below, especially if you have not read the A Song of Ice and Fire books so be warned. I personally have only shimmed over the detailed information below as I want characters and their motivations kept in shadow as much as possible. The list will be updated when new characters are cast so you might want to bookmark this page.

We previously posted on casting for Season 2 of Game of Thrones here: Game of Thrones: Season 2 Casts Liam Cunningham, Carice van Houten, Stephen Dillane,...

There's a flashy new interloper in the domain of Hercule Poirot and Endeavour Morse.

Italian detective Aurelio Zen makes his debut in the PBS "Masterpiece Mystery!" series "Zen" Sunday night, July 17. Played by English actor Rufus Sewell ("Middlemarch," "Pillars of the Earth"), Zen is not your average PBS crime-solver. He looks more like James Bond than Poirot -- darkly handsome in Italian-cut suits, easy on the eyes in a sensual, unself-conscious way. He fits into the beautiful Roman scenery as comfortably as a Michelangelo statue.

Not that we haven't seen our share of charming and attractive lawmen in the "Mystery!" franchise. Inspector Morse (the late John Thaw) was the mature thinking-woman's crush, with his literary bent and love of opera and crossword puzzles. In a similar vein was Commander Adam Dalgleish (Roy Marsden, Martin Shaw), a widower-poet with a lonely, cerebral intensity.

For those who liked their police officers exceedingly well-bred,...

Hello all. This week we have a new take on a classic by Andrew Davies, a cookery show outstaying its welcome, and a new legal drama from Peter Moffatt. Dem's the shows: let's get right to the bitchy take-down of them, eh?

South Riding

The scene: the office of Andrew Davies, famous screenwriter behind the adaptations of "Bleak House," "Middlemarch," and "Pride & Prejudice" (the one with Colin Firth and the pond). Andrew Davies is sitting at a desk piled high with Penguin Classics.

Andrew Davies: (Sigh)

A young man enters. It's Peter, Andrew Davies' assistant.

Andrew Davies: Well, what have you got?

Peter: Mr Davies, sir, I...

Andrew Davies (shouting): Call me Andy! So? What classics have you got for me?

Peter: Well, I've been reading Tolstoy like you told me to, and...

Andrew Davies: Yes, boy, yes, yes? Can I adapt him? Is he any good?...

Darts World Championships

Surely there cannot be a better time, if you're a real sports lover, than the start of the year, which offers up the Darts World Championships at Lakeside in Essex and then, in quick succession, the Snooker Masters championship at Wembley.

Come on. Can anyone think of a better example of two great sporting events occurring so close to each other? No. No one can. The French Tennis Open and the final of the football European Cup occur quite close to each other, I think, but seriously, let's not start comparing football (a nice enough game, if you're into that sort of thing) and darts (the sport of kings). Football would never recover.

Darts -- for our American cousins, people of other nationalities and sheer heathens who don't know or appreciate darts -- is a game for morons, by morons. It consists of throwing arrows at a board.

Steve Moffat, the current showrunner on the BBC's long-running science fiction series Doctor Who, is to work on a new Sherlock Holmes series that will bring the great detective into the 21st Century.

The new Holmes series will be made through a co-production deal signed by Masterpiece on PBS and Hartswood Films (Jekyll, Coupling). An official press release describes the adaptation as follows:

The thrilling new Sherlock series is a fast-paced, witty take on the legendary crime drama, now set in present day London and starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement, The Last Enemy) as the eponymous detective. Martin Freeman (The Office UK, Hot Fuzz) plays his loyal friend, Doctor John Watson, and Rupert Graves (God on Trial, The Forsyte Saga) is Inspector Lestrade. Co-created by Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, Coupling, Jekyll) and Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Crooked House), the iconic details from Arthur Conan Doyle's original books remain: same address,...

So another year has passed and its time for another round of awards for the people who make the television shows we like to watch.

Television is interesting these days. Never before have we seen such great, creative output. Never before have we been subjected to such drivel. It all gets paraded before us tonight, as we watch the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards (handed out, it should be noted, by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences) on CBS, CTV in Canada.

8:00

Interesting that the Emmys chose to introduce the 2009 edition of the Primetime awards by harkening back to the early days of television. Especially as the business of television has never been closer to a complete collapse. Oh, announcer who is trying so hard to sound like a TV host from the '50s. You don't sound at all like you're a three pack-a-day smoker.

8:01

Okay, here comes Neil Patrick Harris,...

American Beauty director Sam Mendes, along with company partners Pippa Harris and Caro Newling, recently signed a two-year first-look deal with Focus Features. The deal with Focus (who were the distributors on Mendes’ recent flick Away We Go) includes the acquisition of two projects that could end up being directed by Mendes. But what’s most interesting is the lack of a mention of the graphic novel adaptation Preacher, which Mendes has already been signed on to direct.

One of the projects included in the Mendes/Focus deal is Butcher’s Crossing, which will be co-produced by Mendes and his Neal Street Productions partners Harris and Newling. It is described as, “an epic adventure based on the 1960 revisionist Western novel by John Williams.” The other project is called Middlemarch, which is to be adapted from a George Eliot novel set in the 1830s. A script for it has been written...

Sam Mendes (

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Total Images: (20)');">Revolutionary Road) has signed a two year contract with Focus Features two direct two projects, Butcher's Crossing, an epic adventure based on the 1960 revisionist Western novel by John Williams. The other is Middlemarch, an adaptation of the George Eliot novel about changing fortunes in a provincial English community in the early 1830s."The range of Sam's interests and skills as a filmmaker is limitless, and he is a magnet for top talent in front of and behind the camera," said Focus CEO James Schamus.Source: firstshowing...

Focus Features has Sam Mendes for two years. Variety reports the studio has made a first-look deal with Mendes, which includes “Butcher’s Crossing” and “Middlemarch.” Mendes is already set to produce “Butcher’s Crossing,” an epic about a man who decides to move to a small town in Kansas to hunt Buffalo herds over pursuing a Harvard education, but may take on directorial duties as well. “Middlemarch” is based on George Eliot’s novel about a provincial English community in the 1830s.

Common and Queen Latifah are just right for Fox Searchlight’s “Just Wright.” Latifah will play a sports trainer who falls for a professional basketball player (Common) while helping him recover from a serious injury. According to Variety, shooting will begin mid-July in New York.

• Despite only being in theaters for the past two weeks and having Away We Go rake in just under a million at the Bo, Focus Features is thinking long term with Sam Mendes (well at least till 2011) and are hoping to get the filmmaker to take on a pair of period piece projects. Mendes and Neal Street Prods have according to Variety, signed a two-year first-look deal that could see Mendes direct. Mendes has gone back in time (Road to Perdition and Revolutionary Road), but not this far back. Not "Miller's" but Butcher's Crossing is based on the 1960 revisionist Western novel by John Williams and is set in 1870s America, the pic focuses on a man who forsakes his Harvard education to move to the small Kansas town of Butcher's Crossing. The New York Times Book Review called the novel "harsh and relentless yet muted in tone, Butcher's Crossing

...

Another exclusive first-look deal for a great indie filmmaker. Oscar winner Sam Mendes has signed a two-year first-look deal with Focus Features, who most recently released his indie Away We Go. This deal includes the acquisition of two projects that could be potential directing vehicles for Mendes. One of them is called Butcher's Crossing, an epic adventure based on the 1960 revisionist Western novel by John Williams. The other is Middlemarch, an adaptation of the George Eliot novel about changing fortunes in a provincial English community in the early 1830s. Both of these sound like great new projects for Mendes. I guess this means that the adaptation of the Preacher graphic novel that Mendes was attached to direct is definitely on the backburner? Or potentially moving on to another director? Variety says that Sam "has not committed to his next film as a director." Although, it sounds like it will probably...

Academy Award wining writer/director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) has signed a two-year first-look deal with indie distributor Focus Features. The Deal includes the acquisition of two projects that could be potential directing vehicles for the filmmaker. One of the projects Mendes is developing, along with producing partners Pippa Harris and Caro Newling, is Butcher's Crossing, an epic adventure based on the 1960 revisionist Western novel by John Williams. Set in 1870s America, the film focuses on a man who forsakes his Harvard education to move to the small Kansas town of Butcher's Crossing. There, he joins the hunt for one of the last great buffalo herds. Focus will also develop the previous announced Middlemarch, an adaptation of the George Eliot novel about changing fortunes in a provincial English community in the early 1830s. Andrew Davies (Brideshead Revisited, Bridget Jones's Diary) penned the screenplay. Which film goes first is...

Focus Features has signed a two-year first-look deal with Sam Mendes and his Neal Street Prods., the company the director partners with Pippa Harris and Caro Newling, according to Variety.

The deal includes the acquisition of two projects that could be potential directing vehicles for Mendes.

Mendes, Harris and Newling are producing Butcher's Crossing, an epic adventure based on the 1960 revisionist Western novel by John Williams.

Set in 1870s America, the pic focuses on a man who forsakes his Harvard education to move to the small Kansas town of Butcher's Crossing. There, he joins the hunt for one of the last great buffalo herds.

Focus will also develop Middlemarch, an adaptation of the George Eliot novel about changing fortunes in a provincial English community in the early 1830s. A script is in by Andrew Davies.

"The range of Sam's interests and skills as a filmmaker is limitless, and he is...

Variety reports that Focus Features has made a two-year first-look deal with Sam Mendes and Neal Street Productions, the company the director partners in with Pippa Harris and Caro Newling. The deal includes the acquisition of two projects that could be potential directing vehicles for Mendes. Mendes, Harris and Newling are producing Butcher's Crossing , an epic adventure based on the 1960 revisionist Western novel by John Williams. Set in 1870s America, the film focuses on a man who forsakes his Harvard education to move to the small Kansas town of Butcher's Crossing. There, he joins the hunt for one of the last great buffalo herds. Focus will also develop Middlemarch , an adaptation of the George Eliot novel about changing fortunes in a provincial English community in...