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Current Projects Site InformationHONORABLE MENTION | While some Black Mirror episodes can be haunting, even terrifying, Season 2’s trip to “San Junipero” was alternately heartbreaking and then reaffirming, thanks in great part to the work of Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Her Kelly, at first, was just a party girl looking to have the best time possible in the titular place. But then came Yorkie, an awkward sweetheart who slowly but surely showed Kelly how to love — and commit to — someone again, having already suffered great loss. Mbatha-Raw’s performance was most compelling during the last couple of San Junipero sequences, as Kelly convinced Yorkie, and us, that their undying (so to speak) love was not meant to be — until, as their and our hearts swelled, it was. [Source]
The mysterious upcoming J.J. Abrams-produced film”God Particle” will be the latest movie connected to the producer’s cult hit “Cloverfield,” an insider familiar with the project told TheWrap.
Not only will “Particle” be the third in a series of connected “Cloverfield” films, but Abrams and studio partner Paramount Pictures are quietly developing more movies for the shared universe, the individual said. Both parties hope to release a new film in the shared “Cloverfield” each year, the insider added.
Fans of “Cloverfield” and its cinematic cousin “10 Cloverfield Lane,” which starred John Goodman and was released in March, speculated the “God Particle” was indeed connected to the same universe when the project was announced in February.
“Particle” is about a team of astronauts who make a “shocking discovery” and end up fighting for survival in what is described as an altered reality. Julis Onah (“The Girl Is in Trouble”) directed from a script by Oren Uziel. It stars David Oyelowo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ziyi Zhang, Elizabeth Debicki, Daniel Brühl and Chris O’Dowd. [Source]
“Don’t hope it was a dream.” Thrilled to confirm that Gugu Mbatha-Raw has joined #TeamWrinkle as Dr. Murry, Meg’s mom + brilliant scientist. pic.twitter.com/13VNc6vsCe
— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) October 20, 2016
With less than a week to go before the curtains are raised for the BFI London Film Festival, organizers have named the jury members who will be poring over entries in the four competitions.
Athina Rachel Tsangari, whose Chevalier won the main award in 2016 and is Greece’s entry for next year’s Oscars foreign-language category, is president of the official competition, heading up a team that includes rising star Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Belle, Miss Sloane), director Anthony Chen (Ilo Ilo) and screenwriter Abi Morgan, whose Suffragette opened last year’s festival.
Also announced Thursday, the awards ceremony, to be held Oct. 15, will be hosted this year by Michael Sheen. Steve McQueen will receive the BFI Fellowship at the event. [Source]
The September 24 official opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, DC will also see the debut of the DuVernay-helmed August 28: A Day In The Life Of A People. Commissioned discreetly and directly by NMAAHC, the 22-minute film of six significant events in African-American history that occurred on that summer day will play exclusively in the museum daily for its first year, I’ve learned.
Starring Don Cheadle, Regina King, Angela Bassett, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lupita Nyong’o, David Oyelowo, Michael Ealy, Andre Holland and Glynn Turman and shot last month on weekends, August 28 depicts the 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech during the massive March on Washington. The DuVernay written, produced and directed film also will look at the 2005 date that Hurricane Katrina made its tragic landfall and the Denver night in 2008 when Barack Obama accepted the Democrats nomination as the first African-American to be a major American political party’s Presidential candidate. [Source]
Black Mirror‘s twisty, twisted tales will continue to unfold on Friday, Oct. 21, Netflix announced on Wednesday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour.
An anthology series created by Charlie Brooker, Black Mirror’s next run of six episodes — which were commissioned by Netflix after the first seasons (plus a Jon Hamm-fronted Christmas special) debuted across the pond, and are being described as “crazier, badder and closer to real life than ever” — include:
* “San Junipero,” featuring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis in an episode directed by Owen Harris [Source]
Europacorp and FilmNation’s John Madden thriller Miss Sloane will hit the marquee on December 9.
Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain stars as Elizabeth Sloane, a ruthless lobbyist who is notorious for her unparalleled talent and her desire to win at all costs, even when it puts her own career at risk. The pic pulls back the curtain on how Capitol Hill games are played and won as Sloane faces off against the most influential powers in D.C. Mark Strong, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alison Pill, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jake Lacy, Sam Waterson and John Lithgow also star. [Source]
An Untamed State
Gina Prince-Bythewood will direct and Gugu Mbatha-Raw will star inAn Untamed State, an adaptation of Roxane Gay‘s debut novel that the director will co-write with the author for Fox Searchlight.
The novel tells the powerful, unflinching story of a Haitian-American woman kidnapped for ransom in front of her husband and child. The novel explores the privilege that made her a target and the strength she must draw on to survive and reclaim her life. Prince-Bythewood is best known for directing Beyond the Lights, and The Secret Life of Bees, and with husband Reggie Rock she is exec producing the 10-hour event series Shots Fired for Fox, Imagine Television and Undisputed Cinema. Mbatha-Raw most recently starred in Concussion and Belle, and she teamed with Prince-Bythewood on Beyond the Lights. [source]
God Particle
David Oyelowo and Gugu Mbatha-Raw are teaming up to star in Julius Onah’s sci-fi thriller “God Particle” for Paramount and J.J. Abrams‘ Bad Robot, an individual familiar with the project has told TheWrap.
Onah will direct the modestly budgeted movie originally written by Oren Uziel, though as TheWrap first reported, Bad Robot hired its “Star Trek Beyond” scribe Doug Jung to rewrite the script last fall.
Abrams and his Bad Robot partner Bryan Burk will produce “God Particle,” which follows an American space station crew who, believing they have destroyed Earth via a Hadron accelerator, allow the crew of hostile nations to board their ship, with disastrous results. [source]
“Mumblecore” master Joe Swanberg is headed for Netflix.
The filmmaker behind micro-indie films including Kissing on the Mouth, Hannah Takes the Stairs and Uncle Kent has scored an eight-episode, straight-to-series order for comedy Easy.
The half-hour single-camera comedy series will, in mumblecore fashion, write, direct and exec produce the series. Easy is described as an anthology that explores diverse Chicago characters as they fumble through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture.
The series will feature appearances from Orlando Bloom, Malin Akerman, Michael Chernus, Marc Maron, Elizabeth Reaser, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jake Johnson, Aya Cash, Dave Franco, Jane Adams, Hannibal Burress and more.
Easy bears similar themes as former web series-turned-IFC entry Young American Bodies, which Swanberg writes, stars, exec produces and directs. [Source]
Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who stars opposite Will Smith in Concussion, is in final negotiations to join Jessica Chastain in Miss Sloane, the gun-control drama being made by FilmNation and EuropaCorp.
The project, which is being directed by John Madden, is in casting mode and just added Michael Stuhlbarg on Friday. Alison Pill is also on the call sheet.
The script, penned by Jonathan Perera, tells of Elizabeth Sloane, a political fixer with an abused and abusive past who takes on Washington’s well-oiled gun lobby to pass gun legislation. The story is set in motion when new legislation requiring more stringent background checks for gun ownership gains traction in Congress. Sloane is approached to spearhead the campaign, quickly finding herself pit against the formidable power of her political opponents. Deploying her notorious skills, and driven by a desire to win at all costs, she jeopardizes those closest to her, and puts her own career at risk.
Mbatha-Raw will play a gun-control lobbyist with a secret. [source]
