Horrible Histories, the book and TV series, is to have a movie outing with a new feature, Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans.
Altitude Film Entertainment and Citrus Films have announced the film based on Scholastic’s best-selling historical comedy book series Horrible Histories by Terry Deary and illustrated by Martin Brown.
Dominic Brigstocke is making his directorial feature debut.
The movie is being produced by Citrus Films’ Caroline Norris and Altitude’s Will Clarke with Giles Pilbrow as co-producer and in association with Scholastic and Lion Television and is being financed by BBC Films, CBBC, Ingenious Media, Silver Reel and with the support of Amazon Studios.
Altitude Film Distribution will release the film in UK and Irish cinemas on 26 July 2019 in partnership with Lorton Entertainment.
Altitude Film Sales will be launching the film at the American Film Market in November where the first footage will be presented. BBC Films has retained free TV rights for the UK and Amazon has retained SVOD rights for the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Australia.
It will shoot on location in the UK and Bulgaria. The film features Sebastian Croft (GAME OF THRONES) as Roman teenager Atti and Emilia Jones (PATRICK) as his Celtic rival Orla leading a cast including Nick Frost (SHAUN OF THE DEAD) as Orla’s father Arghus, Craig Roberts (SUBMARINE) as Emperor Nero and Kim Cattrall (SEX AND THE CITY) as his mother Agrippina. Additional cast include Kate Nash (GLOW) as Boudicca, Rupert Graves (SHERLOCK) as Governor General Paulinus, Alex Macqueen (THE INBETWEENERS) as Nero’s assistant Sycophantus and Sir Derek Jacobi reprises his iconic role as Claudius. The cast also includes Alexander Armstrong, Lee Mack, Warwick Davis, Lucy Montgomery, Jamie Demetriou, Tony Gardner, Kevin Bishop, Samantha Spiro, Ella Smith, Dan Renton Skinner, Dustin Demri-Burns, Tim Downie and Chris Addison alongside HORRIBLE HISTORIES alumni Sarah Hadland, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Dave Lamb, Jessica Ransom, Tom Stourton, Dominique Moore, Richard David-Caine, Lawry Lewin, Katy Wix, Katherine Jakeways and more.
Atti is a Roman teenager who is forced to join the army and is sent to miserable, cold, wet Britain where the natives are revolting. Things go from bad to worse when Atti is captured by Orla, a feisty teenage Celt desperate to prove herself as a warrior. After narrowly avoiding a very sticky end in a bog, Atti uses his Roman know-how to help Orla save her gran who’s been kidnapped by a rival tribe. Meanwhile a furious Nero is determined to crush the rebellion, led by Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni. Atti rejoins his Roman troops and discovers they are preparing for an historic showdown with the Celts at the Battle of Watling Street. Atti’s brains could save the day but they could also spell disaster for Orla as the two new friends find themselves lined up on opposite sides of the battlefield.
The project will be executive produced by Lion Television’s Richard Bradley, Altitude’s Andy Mayson, Mike Runagall and Bradley Quirk, Julian Bird of Lorton Entertainment, Iole Lucchese of Scholastic Entertainment, Joe Oppenheimer, BBC Films’ Rose Garnett and Geraldine Atlee, CBBC’s Cheryl Taylor, Melissa Hardinge and Lucy Beckett, Ingenious Media’s Simon Williams and Vaishali Mistry, Silver Reel’s Claudia Bluemhuber and Jesus Munoz.
Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans reunites Caroline Norris, Giles Pilbrow and Dominic Brigstocke, the creative team behind the first five series of Lion Television’s BAFTA-winning HORRIBLE HISTORIES TV show. The film has been written by Jessica Swale, the Olivier award-winning playwright of Globe Theatre and West End transfer NELL GWYNN, together with Pilbrow and Norris.
Jon Creamer
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