The Waiting City's Claire McCarthy has booked her next gig and it's a doozy.
Titled Ophelia, the film will be a sideways take on Hamlet's unfortunate love interest and is set to star Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Daisy Ridley, as well as Naomi Watts.
International sales will be shopped at Cannes, per Deadline, with financiers Covert Media running point.
One-time Annapurna exec Paul Hanson partnered with Media Content Capital last year to launch Covert Media, a feature production, financing and distribution outfit based in LA.
Ophelia is based on the novel by Lisa Klein, adapted for the screen by Mad Men scribe Semi Chellas. Producers are Daniel Bobker, Ehren Kruger and Sarah Curtis.
The film will be set in the fourteenth century but will discard Shakespeare's original text.
“Sarah, Ehren and I have always treated this film like a jewel, since there’s something extra precious in bringing to life a treasured female icon, celebrated for centuries as an alluring figure in the shadows of Shakespeare’s most famous work, without ever really having her own story told,” said Bobker.
McCarthy is repped by RGM Artists in Sydney, and CAA in the U.S.