{"id":789134,"date":"2026-07-08T22:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/789134\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T22:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:02:09","slug":"focus-features-acquires-andrew-scotts-elsinore-ahead-of-2026-bow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/789134\/","title":{"rendered":"Focus Features Acquires Andrew Scott’s ‘Elsinore’ Ahead of 2026 Bow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFocus Features has acquired \u201cElsinore,\u201d the Ian Charleson biopic starring Andrew Scott<\/a> and Oscar winner Olivia Colman, for the U.S. and multiple international territories, Variety has learned exclusively.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe deal closes a competitive bidding war among several studios for the Simon Stone-directed drama and adds a prestige contender to the Focus slate. Eyeing a fall release, the studio is planning a festival launch to kick off the film\u2019s awards run. Sources tell Variety that programmers at each of the fall festivals \u2014 Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York \u2014 are circling the title, though a premiere venue has yet to be set. Other sources who have seen the film have been ecstatic and overwhelmingly positive about the Irish actor\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\n\tWritten by Stephen Beresford, \u201cElsinore\u201d tells the story of actor Ian Charleson, best known to film audiences as Olympic runner Eric Liddell in the best picture winner \u201cChariots of Fire.\u201d The film focuses on the final months of Charleson\u2019s life, when he took on the role of \u201cHamlet\u201d at London\u2019s National Theatre while privately battling AIDS. Charleson died in January 1990 at age 40, just weeks after the run concluded.<\/p>\n

\n\tFocus Features declined to comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tScott, an Emmy and Golden Globe nominee for the miniseries \u201cRipley\u201d and a BAFTA lead actor nominee for \u201cAll of Us Strangers,\u201d stars as Charleson and also produces. Earlier this year, Scott starred in the war drama \u201cPressure\u201d that was also released by Focus. Colman plays the doctor who treated him through his illness.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ensemble includes Billie Piper, Johnny Flynn, Luke Thompson, Monica Dolan, Juliet Stevenson, Joe Locke, Adeel Akhtar, Matthew Beard, David Dawson as filmmaker Derek Jarman, Kadiff Kirwan, Dickie Beau and Peter Mullan.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlongside Scott, \u201cElsinore\u201d was produced by Andrea Occhipinti of Lucky Red (\u201cIl Divo,\u201d \u201cEverybody Knows\u201d) and Gaby Tana of Magnolia Mae Films (\u201cPhilomena,\u201d \u201cThe Dig\u201d), with Pete Shilaimon and Mickey Liddell of LD Entertainment, Stefano Massenzi and Carolyn Marks Blackwood. The film comes from StudioCanal, LD Entertainment, Lucky Red and Magnolia Mae Films, with Stone shooting on location across the U.K. earlier this year. The artisans team includes cinematographer Mike Eley and editor Valerio Bonelli.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe acquisition adds \u201cElsinore\u201d to a Focus awards slate that has quickly become one of the fall\u2019s most eclectic. The studio\u2019s historic year began with the breakout horror hit \u201cObsession,\u201d from debut director Curry Barker, which became its highest-grossing film ever. Still to come are a \u201cSense and Sensibility\u201d remake starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Robert Eggers\u2019 gothic horror \u201cWerwulf\u201d and Paul Greengrass\u2019 \u201cThe Uprising\u201d with Andrew Garfield and Jamie Bell.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith \u201cElsinore,\u201d Focus adds a genuine theater-world awards play to pair with its starrier titles \u2014 one built around a lead performance that had studios competing well before a festival was even named.<\/p>\n

\n\tScott is repped by United Agents, CAA, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole. CAA Media Finance brokered the deal with Focus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Focus Features has acquired \u201cElsinore,\u201d the Ian Charleson biopic starring Andrew Scott and Oscar winner Olivia Colman, for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[70084,49,48,361,278838,75,1316],"class_list":["post-789134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-andrew-scott","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-elisnore","tag-entertainment","tag-netflix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}