Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jeff Pope (“Philomena”) and “Nautilus” producer Moonriver TV’s Xavier Marchand have teamed as much as create “Eagle Citadel,” a six-episode restricted sequence based mostly on the true story of Allied prisoners of battle. Tailored from the story, it tells the story of the courageous resistance of Allied prisoners of battle.
The pair will current the challenge to an business viewers in Rome in the course of the MIA Market, going down from 14 to 18 October.
“Eagle’s Citadel” is written by Pope and tailored from Mark Felton’s novel of the identical identify. It’s produced by Marchand for Moonriver and Pope produces for his manufacturing firm Etta Photos (a part of ITV Studios). “Harry Potter” star Jason Isaacs is about to star as Cary Grant within the four-part ITV biopic “Archie,” written by Pope.
The play begins in 1943, as battle rages throughout Europe and about two dozen Allied troopers and officers are imprisoned at Castello Vincigliata, a virtually impregnable fortress towering over the Tuscan countryside. It was now transformed into a jail for Mussolini by the fascist troops of Italian dictator Benito.
The prized captives embody two Knights of the Crown, an Air Marshal and 12 generals and brigadiers – the highest-ranking officers to be captured and imprisoned throughout World Struggle II. They have been joined by two brigadiers from New Zealand who had been captured by Italian forces in Libya throughout Mussolini’s North African marketing campaign.
POV Not like unusual troopers, they maintain among the Allies’ most treasured secrets and techniques, together with the data that the British have cracked the Enigma code, the practically unbreakable code utilized by Nazi Germany to transmit top-secret messages. Had prisoners been transferred to Adolf Hitler’s Gestapo, World Struggle II and the destiny of Western civilization might need hung within the stability.
“The stakes are big,” stated Pope, ITV’s head of docudrama. The screenwriter, who gained a BAFTA for ITV’s two-part 2006 drama See No Evil: The Moors Murders, stated The present is not going to solely inform the riveting story of prisoners of battle’s miraculous escape from jail, which required them to dig tunnels beneath the jail.
“It is a whole lot of issues rolled into one. It is a thriller. It is a psychological drama. There’s social commentary in the way it seems to be on the Nazis and the Italian kidnappers,” Pope stated. “We additionally have a look at extremism and the way it divides individuals… It is filled with motion and drama within the conventional sense. However underpinning all of it [are broader themes] We wish to discover.
Marchand, former president of manufacturing at eOne Options, described Eagle Citadel as “an exquisite story about male friendship.” “It is a very transferring piece about older individuals attempting to get again into the battle,” he stated. He added that the present’s creators hope to search out an Italian co-producer or broadcast companion throughout MIA and deal with filming in Tuscany.
The veteran producer, whose credit embody Madame starring Lesley Manville and Isabelle Huppert, based her London-based firm Moonriver in 2016. Harris Goes to Paris,” Paramount+ and Showtime based mostly on the best-selling novel “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Armor Toles, and the Captain Nemo origin story “Nautilus,” impressed by Jules Verne’s “A Gentleman in Moscow.” Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath the Sea,” distributed by AMC and Prime Video.
Marchand additionally serves as government producer on the 2018 Laurel and Hardy biopic Stan & Ollie, written by Pope, a challenge that brings the award-winning scribe and veteran producer collectively for the primary time.
“[‘Castle of the Eagles’] born in [‘Stan & Ollie’]as a result of Xav and I spent a whole lot of time working collectively, it was an actual ardour challenge for each of us,” Pope stated. “I believe we each have a ardour for the early twentieth century. Although they do not look like bedfellows… Stan and Ollie’s heyday was earlier than World Struggle II. It is an period that pursuits us.
The present remembers traditional World Struggle II dramas like John Sturges’ “The Nice Escape,” starring Steve McQueen, James Garner Starring James Garner and Richard Attenborough as Allied prisoners of battle, they stage the daring escape of tons of of prisoners from a Nazi jail camp.
Nevertheless, one main distinction with Eagle Citadel is that, in line with Pope, many of the senior officers who escaped from Vinchigliata Citadel “are in all probability round my age now.”
“‘The Nice Escape’ is about younger officers on the peak of their bodily energy, and what we’ve got listed below are older males, a lot of them of their 50s and 60s, who… must show their bodily energy to the world and to themselves, and How they refuse to simply accept that they’re getting older,” he stated.
“The idea of escape is prime to all of us. However the world and the characters have been so uncommon on the time, so totally different from different escape movies: all of that mixed, I discovered it irresistible.
