Breaking Baz: Gillian Anderson & Jason Isaacs Set For Film Adaptation Of Bestseller ‘The Salt Path’ As Director Marianne Elliott Makes Switch From Stage To Screen — Cannes Market
16.05.2023 - 08:47
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Gillian Anderson and Jason Issacs will star in the film adaptation of Raynor Winn’s bestselling memoir The Salt Path. Marianne Elliott, the Tony Award and Olivier Award winning theater artist, is to make her screen directing debut on the project which will be a nice one in the Cannes market for Rocket Science. Black Bear has already snapped up UK rights.
Winn’s memoir is about a couple who lose their home and days later discover the husband has been diagnosed with a terminal illness as they embark on a year long coastal trek. The book spent a whopping 85 weeks on the London Sunday Times book chart.
Elliott, best known for theater work, directed War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and the seminal revivals of Angels In America, Company and Death of a Salesman in London and on Broadway. The Salt Path is her filmmaking debut.
Anderson (The Crown, Sex Education) and Issacs (Mass, The Death of Stalin) will portray Raynor and her husband Moth.
In official circles, the Salt Path is known as the South West Coast Path — England’s longest footpath. Way back in the day it was the trail favoured by the coast guard watching out for smugglers using the coves and estuaries to stash their goods.
Elliott: ‘Time to grab opportunity’
Elliott was in New York opening an acclaimed revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company when the pandemic shuttered theaters in 2020.
“I came back from America and I thought, ‘Oh, my God is theater ever going to get back?’, “Elliott recalled.
What could she do? Elliott wondered it was “the time for me to grab the opportunity to try and direct a film” as she’d previously had general meetings with movie producers, such as Number 9’s Elizabeth Karlsen, over the years.
“Theater