The Park Chan-wook directed six-part le Carré adaptation commences shooting with Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Shannon and Florence Pugh
London, England [08 February 2018] – Produced by The Ink Factory in partnership with BBC One and AMC, ‘The Little Drummer Girl’ starts shooting across Europe on a global scale today.
The international thriller marks the television debut of visionary film maker Park Chan-wook (Old Boy, The Handmaiden, Stoker). The award-winning director will helm all six hours bringing his epic cinematic sensibility to the small screen.
‘The Little Drummer Girl’ stars Screen Actor’s Guild, Emmy® and Golden Globe Award-Winner Alexander Skarsgård (Big Little Lies, True Blood, Tarzan) as Becker. Twice Academy Award® nominated Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water, Nocturnal Animals) will take on the role of Kurtz and BAFTA nominated Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth) will play Charlie. Global sales on the six-part series are handled by Endeavor Content/IMG.
Brilliant young actress Charlie (Pugh) strikes up an acquaintance with an intriguing stranger while on holiday in Greece, but it rapidly becomes apparent that his intentions are far from romantic. The man is Becker (Skarsgård), an Israeli intelligence officer, who entangles her in a complex and high stakes plot orchestrated by Spymaster, Kurtz (Shannon). Set in the late 1970s yet sharply contemporary, ‘The Little Drummer Girl’ weaves a dynamic and exciting story of espionage and international intrigue; of love and betrayal.
Prime-Time Emmy® nominated Jina Jay (The Night Manager, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) cast ‘The Little Drummer Girl’ and joining the stellar line up are Michael Moshonov (The City and the City) as Litvak, Charif Ghattas (After the Ashes) as Khalil, Amir Khoury (Fauda) as Michel, Katharina Schuttler (Dogs of Berlin) as Helga, Simona Brown (Kiss Me First) as Rachel, Max Irons (Condor, Terminal, The Wife) will play Al and Charles Dance (And Then There Were None, Game of Thrones) will step into the role of Picton.
Oscar-nominated production designer Maria Djurkovic (The Imitation Game Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Mamma Mia) will bring ‘The Little Drummer Girl’ heightened accuracy and a rich detail to the world of late 1970s counter-culture; BAFTA winner and Academy Award® Nominated costume designer, Sheena Napier (Howards End, Enchanted April, Parade’s End) and BIFA Award Winner, Nicole Stafford (The Death of Stalin) will work together to add detailed authenticity to the costume, make-up and hair design.
Highly acclaimed Korean cinematographer Woo-Hyung Kim (Assassination, The Front Line, Late Autumn) will work closely with Park Chan-wook to bring a soaring cinematic texture to Charlie’s journey and nominated Prime-Time Emmy® and BAFTA Award-Winning film editor, Lucia Zucchetti (Game Change, Boy A, The Queen) joins them.
The six-part mini-series based on John le Carré’s best-selling literary masterpiece of the same name has been adapted by Mike Lesslie (Macbeth) and Claire Wilson (Partners in Crime). The series will be financed and produced by The Ink Factory in partnership with 127 Wall and co-producers the BBC and AMC. Laura Hastings-Smith (Howards End, Macbeth, Hunger) will work as Producer with Simon and Stephen Cornwell serving as Executive Producers alongside John le Carré, Joe Tsai, Arthur Wang, Mike Lesslie, Wonjo Jeong, and Park Chan-wook. Mona Qureshi is the executive for the BBC and Kristin Jones is the executive for AMC.
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About The Ink Factory
The Ink Factory is an independent studio with global reach, founded in 2010 by Stephen and Simon Cornwell. The company tells compelling stories across television, film, games and immersive experiences, developing these from inception to release, through long-term relationships with authors and creators. They take bold creative and financial decisions, and seek out opportunities for ambitious and genre-defining work.
A core pillar of the company is the adaptation of the work of author John le Carré for film, television and other media.
The Ink Factory is currently in post-production on Drew Pearce’s Hotel Artemis, starring Jodie Foster and Sterling K Brown and is behind the Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning drama series The Night Manager, based on a le Carré novel of the same name for the BBC and AMC. The company is working on a television adaptation of le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl directed by Park Chan-wook as well as a series based on The Spy Who Came in From the Cold produced in association with Paramount TV, both for the BBC and AMC.
The company’s first film, A Most Wanted Man, based on the novel by John le Carré, was released in 2014. Other past projects include Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, directed by Ang Lee and based on the award-winning novel by Ben Fountain, and Netflix Original Message from the King, a noir thriller by Stephen Cornwell and Oliver Butcher which premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.
The Ink Factory has also partnered with one of the games industry’s top talents, Matt Nava, to found digital studio Giant Squid. Giant Squid’s first game, the twice BAFTA nominated ABZÛ, was released in August 2016.
The company is headquartered in London and Los Angeles.
About AMC
AMC is home to some of the most popular and acclaimed programs on television. AMC was the first basic cable network to ever win the Emmy® Award for Outstanding Drama Series with “Mad Men” in 2008, which then went on to win the coveted award four years in a row, before “Breaking Bad” won it in 2013 and 2014. The network’s series “The Walking Dead” is the highest-rated series in cable history and the number one show on television among adults 18-49 for the last five years. AMC’s other current original drama series include “Better Call Saul,” “Fear the Walking Dead,” “Into the Badlands,” “Humans,” “Preacher,” “The Son” and the forthcoming “Dietland,” “The Terror,” “Lodge 49,” and “McMafia.” AMC also explores authentic worlds and discussion with original shows like “Talking Dead,” “Talking With Chris Hardwick,” “Comic Book Men” and “Ride with Norman Reedus.” AMC is owned and operated by AMC Networks Inc. and its sister networks include IFC, SundanceTV, BBC America and WE tv. AMC is available across all platforms, including on-air, online, on demand and mobile.
About Endeavor Content :
Endeavor Content is a division of Endeavor, a global entertainment leader operating in more than 30 countries. Endeavor Content specializes in scripted television and feature film financing, development and sales on behalf of many of the world’s leading artists and content creators.
About Park Chan-wook
Park Chan-wook is a Korean film director, screenwriter, producer and former film critic who has emerged as one of the most significant talents in cinema in recent years. He is best known for his films Joint Security Area, Thirst, The Handmaiden and what has become known as The Vengeance Trilogy consisting of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance.
Park’s incredibly diverse body of work has garnered recognition in his homeland as well as from a number of leading international film festivals. In 2011, the short film Night Fishing, which he co-directed with his brother, Park Chan-Kyong, and shot entirely with Apple’s iPhone, won the Golden Bear (Short Film) at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2009 Park received worldwide attention for his vampire thriller Thirst, which earned him the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. This monumental film was the first Korean film ever to secure North American distribution and Hollywood studio investment at the production stage. Lady Vengeance was awarded the Cinema Avvenire and Il Leoncino d’oro awards in competition at the 2005 Venice Film Festival. This was preceded by Oldboy, which won the prestigious Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
Park’s interest in film began in college as a philosophy student at Sogang University where he founded a film club and developed a strong interest in film theory and criticism. His film Joint Security Area became the biggest box office hit in the history of Korean cinema at the time of its release (since then, the record has been passed on to other films).
In 2013, Park’s ninth feature and his first English language film Stoker starring Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode and Nicole Kidman was released worldwide by Twentieth Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures to critical acclaim world over.
He is also the producer of the feature film, Snowpiercer (2013), directed by Bong Joon-ho, with an international cast including Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner and Alison Pill, with John Hurt and Ed Harris.
In 2016, he was once again invited to Cannes with The Handmaiden which went on to win the Vulcan Prize. The film, which was inspired by Sarah Waters’ historical crime novel Fingersmith (2002), has proven to be a critical and box office success. This year the film became the first Korean feature to receive a BAFTA nomination.