Chris to star in Noel Coward biopic

Ranwing wrote:I'm going to keep my excitement under control until we get a definite start date for production. We've been disappointed too many times before.

Here's hoping that they get things lined up before Chris is old enough to play Noel's father.

My thoughts to!

Joe and Chris (and Will) were attending a Noel Coward related film event last night.
Hopefully their appearance there is part of the networking and buzz for the biopic and it will start filming soon.

Fingers crossed indeed. 

Chris is American who will be playing an iconic British figure, could be one reason why they have had trouble getting all the funding.

If these people met Chris and realise he respects and admires Noel Coward and know all the work with a dialect coach he has done, and his commitment to the biopic, maybe they could change their minds.

I know we've had way too many false starts/hopes but can't help but speculate this is Noel Coward flic related, among other things.

Joe seems like a nice guy and a good director, but at this point I'm not getting excited until we actually know Chris is on the Noel movie set . Getting an idea of the rest of the cast line up would be nice though.

I don't want to worry anyone, but has anybody else noticed that Noel is no longer on Chris's IMDb page?

OTOH...it seems the film company updated their home page recently (?)

http://www.bgoodpicturecompany.com/home/

Our second feature film, NOEL, starring Chris Colfer, Sir Ian McKellen, Vanessa Redgrave, Jonathan Pryce (and more) is also about to head into production.

i hope that's a good sign. i really hope so.

fantastica wrote:i hope that's a good sign. i really hope so.

I hope so too.

I'm not going to lie... I'm anxious about this project because at some stage it's got to get start filming. Otherwise Chris will have to walk away from it. I have no doubt that he had no problems using the months after Glee for his writing and other small acting projects, but he's got his hands tied in accepting larger roles (like a Broadway run) because he doesn't know when Noel will start filming. If he sees that he's having to turn down work and there's no real word on when Coward is going to start filming, then he's got a hard decision to make.

Chris would hardly be the first actor to give up on a role because of development concerns. And if he could get some assurance that there is a timeline that he is able to work around, he could accept other parts in the interim. But Chris isn't getting younger and he's also going to age out of playing this role. They can't realistically delay much longer and still keep Chris in the cast.

I'm really hoping that we'll get some official word soon and a real answer one way or another. Because I really want Chris to have the chance to play this part. He's deeply invested in it and he deserve it. It would be absolutely tragic if he had to walk away from it at this point.

I agree with you, and I've thought that myself! And he can't hang on forever with what ifs, he's a working actor and he needs to be seen acting or people will forget his talent and then He will not get offered roles, it would be such a shame. we have gone nine months now and from an acting prospective we have only had hot in Cleveland and I'm sure like us he is thirsty for more

Would have been (grudgingly) fine if Chris had announced a year off from acting when Glee ended.  I think his talent is such that even with time off he would get offers and opportunities.

As a fan,though,  I am beyond impatient for Chris to start some major acting projects. As much as I like his singing and love how he developed a separate writing career I've always felt that Chris' truly exceptional gift was his acting.  

Again, as a fan this delay in the Noel Bio is driving me crazy.  It was announced I believe in May of 2014 to first start in the late summer for filming.  It was obviously going to clash with the filming of season 6 of Glee, but the official announcement indicated Chris was set to go.

My own speculation is that once Glee was reduced to a shortened season the PTB /FOX rescinded Chris request for several months off.  Chris wasn't the only actor affected, not quite the same but Matt Morrison was obligated when earlier he was expecting to exit the show.  I realize Matt's service was tied in to other things, including the earlier passing of Cory, but the point is that they were all under a FOX contract that outside projects could be shelved.  It was no secret Matt was planning Finding Neverland on BW.

That resulted per Noel in probably both funding and cast availability majorly impacted.  Among other things I'm thinking any outside funding would want/insist Ian McKellan tied to the project even for a small role.  I also speculate that the budget of the movie increased exponentially and ironically that meant more name actors but also additional logistics/planning and funding delays.

So I'm thinking there either will be a starting date AND filming  within the next few months or the project will be shelved.  It's hard to fathom any "non" news beyond April 2016 simply because I can't see Ian McKellen and company not having other gigs line up.  However, I'm still cautiously optimistic .  Ian seems to think the world of the director.

Having said that, I'm sure Chris will get  other acting projects, but for me personally the announced Noel Coward film coming at the end of several seasons of Glee where RIB  had flagrantly sidelined Chris/Kurt  seemed like such a perfect karmic payback for Chris.  The title role in a biopic of an iconic British entertainer.

I agree that Glee's shortened season totally screwed filming Noel up for Chris. He very probably had an agreement to allow him time away from the show when he took the part, But once the shortened season was announced, there was no way that the show was going to allow Chris any time away (even though he was barely used) and the producers reneged on their agreement. That caused the film to lose the funding it lined up and the unbearable delay.

The fact that Sir Ian still talks about being attached to the project gives me hope but Chris is going to need some kind of commitment in order to determine how to pace the projects that he wants to do. Maybe the risk of losing Chris (since he was their first choice for the part) will grease the wheels a bit. There are a lot of people who want to see this project made, and apparently made with Chris in the lead role. But Chris can't postpone the rest of his career forever and my guess is that if we don't get any kind of start date within the next two or three months, then we can assume that the project has been shelved and Chris will walk.

Unfortunately, this is the nature of the business. Projects fall through all the time, and have fallen through for a lot bigger names than Chris. It's just unfortunate to have Noel having so many problems after having Robodog getting shelved.

I was messing around on IMDB tonight looking up a couple of things, and noticed the Noel Coward movie has been removed from the listings of every actor previously announced for it. So I think maybe two things could have happened - either it has been shelved altogether, or they are getting ready to announce it under its actual title, with the rest of the cast and an actual date to start filming. Joe Stephenson's tweet a couple of weeks ago about having announcements after the new year makes me hope it's the latter.

If it has been shelved, as upsetting as it would be ( ), at least Chris would be free now from that obligation.

^ so either way is good news. I like that attitude.

I hope this film will made soon or Chris will walk. I do not think it will be fair to Chris to have to keep turning down roles,because he is not sure when the film will start filming.

From tumblr:

Just because I keep seeing this issue pop up in various places and provoke fretting: the Noel film (aka Untitled Noel Coward Biopic) has not been removed from Chris Colfer’s imdb page, or Sir Ian McKellen’s, Vanessa Redgrave’s or Jonathan Pryce’s. It’s just been moved to the ‘In Development’ box, which is in the right-hand sidebar about halfway down the page. The details are still visible on imdbPro, and look the same as they always have.

(This is a thing imdb seems to do automatically when there haven’t been any updates to an in-development project for a certain length of time. It’s happened to a couple of other projects I’m watching as well. It’s annoying, but meaningless in terms of what’s actually happening with the project).

Now I’m just going to hope that Joe Stephenson gets an announcement out this week or next as hinted, so there’s something concrete to think about!

PS: b good picture company is fiddling with its website at the moment…

callie-quite-contrary

There you go.
Also: IMDb pages can be changed by anyone, including fans (or trolls: remember how a crisscolfer tinhatter mutilated Will's page a while back?). And it's rather slow when it comes to real news and developments being added to an actor's page.

Sleepy Hollow is going on Broadway, the director or producer mentions Fox on Glee and the sketch on their official site looks like Chris. This I will put in the twitter thread and let others judge.

Glorfindel wrote:From tumblr:

Just because I keep seeing this issue pop up in various places and provoke fretting: the Noel film (aka Untitled Noel Coward Biopic) has not been removed from Chris Colfer’s imdb page, or Sir Ian McKellen’s, Vanessa Redgrave’s or Jonathan Pryce’s. It’s just been moved to the ‘In Development’ box, which is in the right-hand sidebar about halfway down the page. The details are still visible on imdbPro, and look the same as they always have.

(This is a thing imdb seems to do automatically when there haven’t been any updates to an in-development project for a certain length of time. It’s happened to a couple of other projects I’m watching as well. It’s annoying, but meaningless in terms of what’s actually happening with the project).

Now I’m just going to hope that Joe Stephenson gets an announcement out this week or next as hinted, so there’s something concrete to think about!

PS: b good picture company is fiddling with its website at the moment…

callie-quite-contrary

There you go.
Also: IMDb pages can be changed by anyone, including fans (or trolls: remember how a crisscolfer tinhatter mutilated Will's page a while back?). And it's rather slow when it comes to real news and developments being added to an actor's page.

I had never noticed that in-development section before. I've always seen the in-development stuff at the top of the list, so I wonder if that section is fairly new. That's good to know though. I hope we hear somethings soon.

The video of their logo looks pretty cool.

http://www.bgoodpicturecompany.com/home/

They are doing stuff to their website so maybe we might see these announcements soon.

I hope Chris books some other things of note until this goes into production, if that time even comes. Because depending how early or late in the year this finally goes into production, they'll likely have their completed project ready to either hit the festival circuit in 2017 or 2018, just judging by Chicken's timeline. If getting to production was this much of an obstacle, I can't imagine the nightmare post, release, and distribution will be. I'm anticipating seeing his acting chops again.

I suspect that part of the funding issue is that the budget turned out to be higher than your run of the mill indie project , at the least it will have musical numbers and has a turn of the century setting.

Plus the director, Joe Stephenson, is still virtually unknown and it's his fledgling production company that wants to make the movie; so part of it is still retaining control and making the movie how he envisions.