Well it looks like Mary Queen of Scots, one of those endlessly re-examined stories about the eponymous Mary Stuart has found a helmer in the prolific Susanne Bier.
The 16th-century biopic to which Byzantium and Hanna star Saoirse Ronan has been attached for just over a year is aiming for a 2014 shoot.
The melodrama-inclined Danish director Bier will direct the script that Penelope Skinner (How I Live Now ) is working with The Tudors and Elizabeth writer Michael Hirst.
Heavyweight British production company Working Title behind the project is aiming for some measure of continuity between their Elizabethan biopics. The role of the Virgin Queen hasn’t been cast yet.
Bier who most recently directed Depression-era drama Serena has yet to be signed.
Mary’s life story is wondrously complex, but her demise began when her marriage to her cousin ended in his murder. She then wed the man many believed responsible for her late husband’s murder, resulting in an uprising against the couple. Mary was forced to abdicate her throne to her infant son, and when her attempt to gain control once again failed she fled to the protection of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. As Mary had once claimed to be “the rightful queen” of England (and given that many Catholics embraced this view), Elizabeth quickly had Mary imprisoned and ultimately executed.
Working Title’s film should not be confused with an upcoming Swiss drama film MARY Queen of Scots directed by Thomas Imbach that will premiere at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival. The young French actress Camille Rutherford (Low Life) stars as the doomed monarch in this sumptuous historical drama.
Check it out below.
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