Jim Sheridan Biopic With U2 Songs In the Works From ‘Spinning Gold’ Director (EXCLUSIVE)

Sky Studios has hired CBS Studios international co-pros chief Meghan Lyvers as it seeks to significantly scale up its original UK drama output.

K.J. Yossman CBS Studios’ Meghan Lyvers is heading to Sky Studios in a new role as director of original drama for the U.K.

Fargo season 5.Specific details about their characters are currently under wraps, although their names have been revealed. Hamm will play Roy, Temple will play Dot and Leigh will play Lorraine [via Variety].A fifth season of the FX anthology series was officially announced back in February, over a year after the conclusion of the Chris Rock-led fourth season.Plot details for Fargo season 5 are yet to be revealed, but it has been confirmed that the latest story from creator Noah Hawley will be set in 2019, keeping up the show’s trend of alternating seasons between different time periods.The tagline for the season reads: “When is a kidnapping not a kidnapping, and what if your wife isn’t yours?Hamm, who is best known for his Emmy-winning role in Mad Man, recently appeared in Top Gun: Maverick, which is now the biggest box office hit of 2022 in the UK and Ireland, overtaking Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and The Batman.

Where The Crawdads Sing star Daisy Edgar-Jones shipped out DJ decks and put on shows for the cast, according to one co-star.The Normal People actress takes on the lead role in the upcoming adaptation of Delia Owens’ 2018 bestselling novel.However, fellow star Taylor John Smith has spoken on Edgar-Jones’ love for DJing, revealing she taught him how to spin decks.“It was phenomenal,” he told the PA news agency at the MTV Movie and TV Awards (via Irish News). “[Daisy’s] so funny when you’re not working that you forget how brilliant of an actor she is.“It was a great experience.

A Star Is Born will be playing the iconic Broadway composer in a new film called Maestro, released by Netflix.Cooper will play Bernstein alongside Carey Mulligan as the composer’s wife Felicia Montealegre, and Succession star Jeremy Strong has been cast as critic John Gruen.Netflix shared the first images from the film’s set yesterday (May 30), which feature Cooper wearing heavy old-age makeup in order to depict Bernstein.Take a look at the images here:From the set of Maestro. pic.twitter.com/HHzLsNNkyS— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) May 30, 2022Cooper is set to direct Maestro from a script co-written with Spotlight screenwriter Josh Singer.

Van Morrison is suing the Northern Irish government’s Department Of Health, and its minister Robin Swann, as part of an ongoing war of words over the COVID-19 pandemic.The musician achieved the rare feat of uniting the politicians of Northern Ireland when he released three songs in 2020 criticising the COVID lockdowns, a move that garnered criticism from key members of various competing political parties.In the songs, Morrison sang about ‘fascist bullies’ and claimed that governments were deceiving people about the severity of the coronavirus in order to ‘enslave’ the people.Swann was particularly critical of the anti-lockdown releases, even penning an op-ed piece for Rolling Stone to say so. “We in Northern Ireland are very proud of the fact that one of the greatest music legends of the past 50 years comes from our part of the world”, he wrote of Morrison.

Clayton Davis After coming up short in the Oscar race for his role as Pa in Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast,” Jamie Dornan is trying his hand at the Emmys for his work in the HBO Max series “The Tourist.” Assumed to be going into the brimming limited series categories, Variety has learned exclusively that HBO submitted the show in the drama categories for this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards.The HBO series tells the story of a Northern Irish man who wakes up with amnesia in an Australian hospital. Following clues to his identity, he tries to find who he is, while his past threatens to catch up with him.

New BBC series Conversations With Friends has been a hot topic of conversation since landing on screens in the past week.The new series – based on the novel of the same name – was also written by Normal People's author Sally Rooney and directed by Lenny Abrahamson, and follows the story of students Frances and Bobbi, ex-girlfriends who become entangled in the relationship of an older couple.The series was shot in a range of places, including in Ireland and abroad in Croatia, and in a recent behind-the-scenes look, the cast joined together at the BFI & Radio Times Television Festival to share an insight into the makings of the beguiling adaptation. And it turns out a great deal of run-ins with animals took place during filming, one of which the cast wasn't aware of.

U2‘s Bono and The Edge are reportedly working on new music for North Star, an upcoming biopic about the director Jim Sheridan.Sheridan, who is best known for such films as My Left Foot and In The Name Of The Father, will direct the semi-autobiographical feature, which will tell the story of the director’s early life in Ireland in the early 1960s.North Star is described as “the coming-of-age story of 17-year-old Sheamie Sheridan, who lives with his rough-around-the-edges father and younger brother Frankie”.“A journey into the heart and soul of a family, Sheamie finds his world turned upside down when a teenage orphan moves in to live with them, revealing the deeper and more complicated problems Sheamie has with his dad; secrets that now threaten to tear the family apart.”Variety reports that Bono and The Edge are “in discussions to compose original music” for Sheridan’s North Star, which is being produced by Spinning Gold director Timothy Scott Bogart.The U2 musicians are in talks to write and perform the original song ‘North Star’ in addition to collaborating on the score.Shooting on North Star is set to begin in early 2023 on location in Ireland.Bono, meanwhile, will publish his memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story in November.The book is set to span the singer’s career, “from his early days growing up in Dublin, including the sudden loss of his mother when he was 14, to U2’s unlikely journey to become one of the world’s most influential rock bands, to his 20 years of activism dedicated to the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty”.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorSales agency Beta Cinema has revealed the casting of further lead roles for action thriller “The Climb”: Hero Fiennes Tiffin, star of the global box office franchise series “After,” as well as the upcoming Sony/Tristar feature “The Woman King,” and IMDB break-out star Hannah John-Kamen, best known for her performances in “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp” and “Black Mirror,” will star alongside Cara Delevingne, who was announced earlier this year.After Signature Entertainment picked up the project ahead of the Marché du Film in Cannes for U.K. and Ireland, Beta Cinema has closed further deals for Germany, Austria and Italy (Koch Films), Switzerland (Ascot Elite), Spain (Youplanet Pictures) and Middle East (Front Row).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefFrench sales agency Elle Driver is giving a Cannes Market launch to “Kid Snow,” a West Australian-produced tale of redemption set in the 1970s world of tent boxing. Production starts on Monday in Australia’s Goldfields-Esperance region, making it the first feature film to kick off production in the state since its border re-opened.Boxing tents toured Australia’s small towns from the early 1900s until the 1970s, and were venues where professional fighters faced off against local challengers.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefBusy Australian production company Aquarius Films has partnered with Irish production company Port Pictures to produce the feature film, “The Good People.” The film is based on the award-winning novel by Hannah Kent, who also wrote the adapted screenplay.“The Good People” is set in 19th century Ireland at a time when the Catholic church was waging war against pagan beliefs. It sees three women conspire to free a young boy from evil spirits.“The Good People” is an examination of absolute belief and superstition.

Timothy Scott Bogart already has a busy Cannes Film Festival, showing off his film, “Spinning Gold,” a documentary about his father, Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart, to potential buyers. And it appears that Bogart is just getting started, as he already has his following two projects lined up, according to Variety.

K.J. Yossman Keira Knightley-voiced animated biopic “Charlotte” has been picked up for distribution in U.K.

K.J. Yossman Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim” is set to get an animated feature adaptation by Indian filmmaker Ketan Mehta.Mehta’s animation studio, Cosmos-Maya, will co-develop the film alongside Irish animation studio Piranha Bar. Mehta (“Sardar,” “Mangal Pandey: The Rising”) will direct.“Kim” is a story about Kimball O’Hara, AKA Kim, a savvy street kid turned child spy in colonial-era India who becomes an apprentice to a Shaolin monk.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBeta Cinema has sold the English-language tragicomedy “My Neighbor Adolf” to several major territories. The film stars German actor Udo Kier and Scottish actor David Hayman, and is directed by Israel’s Leon Prudovsky.All rights for North America have gone to Cohen Media Group, Signature Entertainment has acquired the U.K./Ireland rights, I Wonder took Italy, Lumix Media has South Korea and Tohokushinsha Film took Japan.The film, set in 1960, centers on Polsky, a Holocaust survivor, who lives in the remote Colombian countryside.

Manori Ravindran International EditorFilm financier Amcomri Entertainment and Ireland’s Studio Atlantic have struck a multi-picture production deal.The pact comes ahead of the release of Studio Atlantic’s latest production, “The Gates,” a Victorian period horror starring John Rhys Davies, Richard Brake, Elena Delia and Michael Yare, which is currently being sold in Cannes by Amcomri Entertainment’s sales arm 101 Films Intl.The deal will see Amcomri Prods. co-finance a slate of movies and become an official financing partner of Studio Atlantic, with 101 Films Intl.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentLondon-based Alief has closed North America and French-speaking territories on Icelandic spoof “Cop Secret.” In North America, “Cop Secret” has scored a platform release with Epic Pictures. Extralucid Films has acquired France, Monaco, Luxembourg and French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland.The writer-director feature debut of Hannes Thor Halldorsson, Iceland’s national soccer team goalkeeper, “Cop Secret” will bow in select theaters in North America on July 8 then on VOD on July 12.Alief’s Brett Walker and Miguel Govea are at the Cannes Film Market to continue the international roll-out of “Cop Secret,” which is already impressive. Territories closed take in Japan (AT Ent), Korea (Movement), Taiwan (CCE) and Spain (Twelve Oaks).

Manori Ravindran International EditorIFC Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights from HanWay Films on Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s “Hot Milk,” starring Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps.Streaming service MUBI has also agreed a multi-territory deal for the film in the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Latin America and Turkey.

The debut of a Scottish director is one of seven films to be selected for Critic's Week at the Cannes Film Festival in a spectacular moment for Scottish cinema.