Latest in Stephen Frears

After the success of his 2013 Venice entry Philomena, Britain's Steve Coogan found himself reunited with that film's creative team — director Stephen Frears and writer Jeff Pope — for TIFF World Premiere The Lost King, another bittersweet comedy based on real-life events. "If this wasn't a true story," Pope told…

William Shakespeare rather definitively defined Richard the Third as a deformed, conniving, duplicitous and altogether unsavory monarch in his 1597 play, and the man's image as such has persisted ever since. But that all changed nearly a decade ago when an obscure amateur historian sniffed around and ultimately…

IFC Films is acquiring North American rights to Stephen Frears’ drama The Lost King, starring Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water) and Steve Coogan (The Trip), ahead of its world premiere at the 47th Toronto Film Festival. The film reuniting Frears with writers Coogan and Jeff Pope—who adapted the script for his 2013…

Kate Winslet has found her latest HBO limited series. The Mare of Easttown star will star in and exec produce The Palace, a series that tells the story of one year within the walls of the palace of an authoritarian regime as it begins to unravel. The limited drama, which has been ordered to series by the Warner Bros…

Christoph Waltz is to lead Stephen Frears and Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Billy Wilder & Me.  The No Time to Die and Inglorious Basterds star will play Wilder in the part coming-of-age story, part true-to-life portrait of the Hollywood icon, which is adapted from a book by Jonathan Coe. In the summer of 1977…

EXCLUSIVE: The BBC has acquired the second series of Nick Hornby/Stephen Frears’ high-end short form series State of the Union from Endeavor Content. See-Saw Films’ second run, a Sundance TV original, moves Stateside and features Brendan Gleeson, Patricia Clarkson and Esco Jouléy. Clarkson plays Ellen, a liberal…

This past week I happily immersed myself in the latest book by protean film critic/biographer/sometime novelist David Thomson, A Light in the Dark: A History of Movie Directors. Even as he approaches 80, the author of the invaluable Biographical Dictionary of Film editions is able to find fresh things to say about…

EXCLUSIVE: Maggie Kiley (Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, Riverdale) is set to direct and executive produce the first two episodes of Peacock's limited series Dr. Death, starring Jamie Dornan, Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater. Kiley replaces Stephen Frears, who had signed on for the project in January but had…

When you watch Quiz, the ITV and AMC drama on the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? cheating scandal of 2001, you realize that is just such obviously fertile territory for television drama. A story about a million-pound heist, which played out on one of the biggest quiz shows ever made, featuring characters from everyday…

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning British director Stephen Frears (The Queen, A Very English Scandal) is set to direct the first two episodes of Peacock's limited series Dr. Death, starring Jamie Dornan, Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater. The UCP-produced series, based on Wondery's hit podcast of the same…

ITV and AMC have dropped a first look at Michael Sheen as TV host Chris Tarrant in their dramatization of the cheating scandal on Britain’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The still from Left Bank Pictures-produced Quiz re-creates the moment Tarrant, who hosted Who Wants to Be a Millionaire for 16 years on ITV, arrived…

Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike and Bridesmaids star Chris O'Dowd are set to star in a Stephen Frears-directed comedy series for SundanceTV. The pair are to front the short-form comedy series State of the Union, which will be a series of ten-by-ten minute episodes, to be produced by The King's Speech producer See-Saw Film…