Movie News Archive

The Beautiful & The Damned

October 18th
FilmGaze.com has Tweeted that Keira told them on the red carpet that The Beautiful & Damned is no longer happening. We await official confirmation of this, but given its absence during a Variety article mentioning the production company's ongoing projects after financial restructuring, it's no surprise that it may have been mothballed, if not cancelled completely.

July 26th
The LA Business Journal has an update on The Film Department, the company that was due to produce Keira in The Beautiful & Damned. The company has suffered financial setbacks lately but may now be entering a new chapter in its history, and the F Scott Fitzgerald biopic is still on its slate.

April 6th
Last time I had a response from the production company behind The Beautiful & Damned, they told me to keep an eye on the Project Notes section of the movie's entry at IMDb. This section was updated last week (March 27th) with the note: 'Production Unknown'. More recent enquiries have gone unanswered. Hmm...

February 1st
The Croatian press is reporting that The Beautiful & Damned will be filmed there in the Spring. We knew that already as a filming location, but any news on this movie is welcome. Also of interest is the first hint at casting for Fitzgerald himself - Leonard di Caprio...?

January 14th
Director David Cronenberg confirms he is in discussion with Keira over The Talking Cure, but says in this interview that casting has not been confirmed.
However, Baz in The Daily Mail says in his Friday column that ...Cure is one of two films Keira has lined up post-Misanthrope (the other may be The Beautiful & The Damned, which is still officially on). He also says she has walked away from My Fair Lady as it was taking too long to come together.

October 19th
The Film Department, via IndieWire's Ann Thompson, have confirmed my speculation for a 2010 start for The Beautiful & The Damned in this article.

October 12th
With Keira now treading the boards throughout the Winter and early Spring (KeiraWeb brought in more than $1,000 of ticket sales for The Misanthrope just this weekend!), it raised further questions over the already-delayed F. Scott Fitzgerald biopic The Beautiful & The Damned, in which Keira was set to play the author's wife Zelda. Well, another enquiry to producers The Film Department has returned the same response - the film is still "in development and pre-production". Provided we get further cast announcements over the next few months, we should be looking at a Spring start hopefully. Don't forget though, projects can and do get mothballed - The Jacket was all set for a 2000 production, but it didn't happen until 2004.

August 4th
Received a small but reassuring update from The Film Department via email today, co-producers of The Beautiful & Damned - "it's still in development/pre-production". Shooting is still on for the Fall/Autumn with John Curran at the helm. With so much 'radio silence' there was a danger of it going the same way as King Lear, but thankfully that's not the case.

March 11th
ComingSoon interview Keira ahead of the US Edge Of Love release. Notable are Keira's comments confirming my recent posts regarding The Beautiful and the Damned - "later on in the year" and My Fair Lady - "slowly but surely coming together".

March 4th
The Beautiful & The Damned looks like it may swap places with Never Let Me Go in Keira's schedule, as location company Screen East have been contracted to find Norfolk locations ready for filming of Never at the end of this month. The fact that the lead actor for Damned has yet to be announced suggests its planned March date will not now happen. Article.

January 15th
Rumours abound of Keira's casting in The Rum Diary alongside Johnny Depp, although as you can see from the original article, she's only on the wishlist of a casting assistant. Filming would clash with The Beautiful & Damned anyway.

January 5th 2009
Following the departure of director Nick Cassavetes from the project, today's Variety reports that John Curran has stepped in to direct Keira in The Beautiful and The Damned, with a March production date mentioned.

November 10th
Keira's role as Zelda Sayre in The Beautiful and The Damned appears to be confirmed judging by the preliminary artwork on the producer's web site. There's been nothing in the press since the "in talks" news story back in September. Filming is set for Spring next year, after Keira completes King Lear, the exterior scenes of which will be filmed in Scotland, according to this article in Variety.

September 23rd
Keira is in negotiations to play Zelda Sayre, wife of US author F. Scott Fitzgerald (author of The Great Gatsby and Tender Is The Night) in a movie called The Beautiful And Damned, to be directed by Nick Cassavetes. The Hollywood Reporter states the film will tell the "untold story" of their tumultuous relationship, although it has formed the basis of many previous productions on stage and screen, most notably the Emmy-winning 1993 TV drama starring Natasha Richardson. Article.