The Becker Film Group has just acquired Australian and New Zealand rights to Caught in Flight, the film in which Naomi Watts is to play Princess Diana.
The UK film is scheduled to go into production in July and is the first to be represented internationally by sales and financing company Embankment Films, which has already made sales to more than 40 territories.
“From my perspective, Princess Diana is one of the great stories of our time, and Naomi Watts has a great profile in Australia and I hope she will come out and support the release,” said Richard Becker.
The film is a love story between Princess Diana and heart surgeon Dr Hasnat Khan to be directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, who made Downfall. The producers are Robert Bernstein and Douglas Rae of Ecosse Films, and the script has been written by Stephen Jeffreys.
Becker said Caught in Flight and his other two most recent pick-ups – The Words, about a writer (Bradley Cooper) at the peak of his success who must pay the price of plagiarism, and Writers, about a novelist (Greg Kinnear), his ex wife (Jennifer Connelly) and their children – are the execution of a new strategy: he wants to continue to target a mature audience but with quality films that are on a bigger scale, with good stories, strong characters and better-known cast.
“I don’t see a lot of really strong character-driven films that target the mature AB demographic from Australian producers and I’m not interested in genre films or films for young adults.”
Becker is releasing David Pulbrook's Australian drama Last Dance, which tells of a holocaust survivor (Julia Blake) held hostage by a terrorist (Firass Dirani).
Margin Call, The Last Station, Female Agents and The Reluctant Infidel are among the Becker Group’s most recent releases.