Knightley Our Fair Lady?
Who wants to Bend It Like Beckham when you can become a Lady?
Keira Knightley is reportedly in negotiations to pull an Audrey Hepburn and star in a contemporary update of Lerner and Loewe’s classic musical My Fair Lady.
The new version was announced this morning, but there was no confirmation of a Variety report that the 23-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star and Atonement Oscar nominee would be playing the role of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who is transformed into a lady under the tutelage of Professor Henry Higgins, who in turn falls in love with her.
The redo will be a coproduction of Broadway legend Cameron Mackintosh (Cats, Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera), Duncan Kenworthy (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually) and CBS Films, which owns the rights to the musical. Columbia Pictures will distribute the movie.
The 21st century Lady will retain the 1912 setting, but Kenworthy and Mackintosh plan to shoot in real London locations as opposed to Warner Bros. soundstages, where George Cukor filmed his beloved 1964 Oscar-winning production that costarred Rex Harrison as Higgins.
The new film will also draw additional source material from George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, which served as inspiration for Lerner’s book for the musical.
“People everywhere will fall in love again with Lerner and Loewe’s miraculous songs set in a big, gorgeous film with contemporary stars, a more realistically achieved vision of Edwardian London, and a touch more Pygmalion at the heart of this powerful story of a girl’s transformation,” promised Mackintosh. “The classic story of a flower girl transformed into an instant sensation couldn’t be more timely in a contemporary world obsessed with overnight celebrity.”
Next up for Knightley is another costume drama, The Duchess, costarring Ralph Fiennes and due out later this year.
Mackintosh previously produced two stage revivals of My Fair Lady, the first in 1979 with Lerner himself directing, and a second adaptation that opened to acclaim in London’s West End and is currently touring the U.S.