Scott Hicks starts principal photography today on his new film – the Clive Owen-starrer, The Boys Are Back – buoyed by the news that Miramax has picked up the US and Western Europe distribution rights.
(We’re pretty sure that Western Europe includes the UK, but please correct us if we’re wrong. Wars have been fought over less.)
The film, based on a seriocomic novel by Allan Cubitt (the full title of which is actually The Boys Are Back In Town, named after the Thin Lizzy song) will see Owen play a widower struggling to raise two kids. The lovely Laura Fraser and Aussie actress Emma Booth have also signed on to the cast.
Miramax president, Daniel Battsek, was ecstatic about the deal. "I had been wanting to continue the relationship with Scott Hicks I had started so long ago on Shine," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "Once Clive signed on, all of the pieces fell into place."
As well they might.
Greg Brenman and Tim White are producing the film, which is shooting in Australia… so it’s a sort of homecoming for Hicks, who hasn’t shot a feature film there since the aforementioned Shine in 1996. We wish him - and our very own Clive - well.