Production Begins on Stephen Frears' VICTORIA AND ABDUL, Starring Judi Dench

Production has begun on Working Title Films' VICTORIA AND ABDUL, to which Focus Features holds worldwide rights as part of the company's renewed global initiative. Academy Award winner Judi Dench stars as Queen Victoria opposite Ali Fazal (of Furious 7) as Abdul Karim in the film directed by Academy Award nominee Stephen Frears (The Queen). Victoria and Abdul is being financed by Focus in association with BBC Films.

Focus will release the movie domestically in exclusive engagements on September 22nd, 2017 with an expansion on September 29th, 2017. Universal Pictures International will distribute the film around the world, beginning on September 8th, 2017 with a release across the U.K.

The production is filming at locations across Scotland, India, and England. Victoria and Abdul was developed by Beeban Kidron and Lee Hall at Cross Street Films with BBC Films, and is being produced by Ms. Kidron, Academy Award nominee Tracey Seaward (The Queen), and Working Title's co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, and executive-produced by Christine Langan for BBC Films.

Mr. Bevan and Mr. Fellner have produced many Working Title movies for Focus release, including Best Picture Oscar nominees Atonement and The Theory of Everything, and the upcoming Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill for director Joe Wright.

The screenplay of Victoria and Abdul is by Lee Hall, an Academy Award nominee and Tony Award winner for Working Title's Billy Elliot; and is based on Shrabani Basu's book Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant.

The film tells the extraordinary true story of an unexpected friendship in the later years of Queen Victoria's remarkable rule. When Abdul Karim, a young clerk, travels from India to participate in the Queen's Golden Jubilee, he is surprised to find favor with the Queen herself. As the Queen questions the constrictions of her long-held position, the two forge an unlikely and devoted alliance with a loyalty to one another that her household and inner circle all attempt to destroy. As the friendship deepens, the Queen begins to see a changing world through new eyes and joyfully reclaims her humanity.

Joining Ms. Dench and Mr. Fazal in the cast are Adeel Akhtar (The Night Manager), Simon Callow (Working Title's FOUR WEDDINGS and a Funeral), BAFTA Award winner Michael Gambon, Emmy Award winner Eddie Izzard, Ruth McCabe (Mr. Frears' Philomena), Tim Pigott-Smith (The Jewel in the Crown), Julian Wadham (The Iron Lady), Olivia Williams (Focus and Working Title's Anna Karenina), and Fenella Woolgar (Focus' Scoop).
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The filmmaking team has been rounded out with director of photography Danny Cohen, reteamed with Mr. Frears following the current release Florence Foster Jenkins; film editor Melanie Ann Oliver (Focus and Working Title's The Danish Girl); production designer Alan MacDonald, marking his seventh film with Mr. Frears; hair and make-up designer Daniel Phillips, on his fifth movie with Mr. Frears; and costume designer Consolata Boyle, an Academy Award nominee for her work with Mr. Frears on The Queen.

Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner have been co-chairs of Working Title Films, one of the world's leading film production companies, since 1992. Working Title has made more than 100 films that have grossed over $6 billion worldwide. Its films have won 12 Academy Awards (for Tom Hooper's LES MISERABLES and The Danish Girl; James Marsh's The Theory of Everything; Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking; Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo; Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age; and Joe Wright's Atonement and Anna Karenina), 39 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards, and prizes at the Cannes and Berlin International Film Festivals.

Mr. Bevan and Mr. Fellner have been honored with the Producers Guild of America's David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures, the PGA's highest honor for motion picture producers. They have been accorded two of the highest film awards given to British filmmakers: the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema award at the BAFTA Awards, and the Alexander Walker Film Award at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. They have also both been honored with CBEs (Commanders of the Order of the British Empire).

The company's commercial and critical hits include The Interpreter, About a Boy, Notting Hill, Elizabeth, Fargo, Dead Man Walking, Bean, High Fidelity, Johnny English, Billy Elliot, FOUR WEDDINGS and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Love Actually, Shaun of the Dead, Pride & Prejudice, Nanny McPhee, United 93, Mr. Bean's Holiday, Hot Fuzz, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Burn After Reading, Frost/Nixon, Atonement, Senna, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Anna Karenina, LES MISERABLES, I Give It A Year, About Time, Rush, The Two Faces of January, Trash, The Theory of Everything, Legend, Everest, The Program, The Danish Girl, Grimsby, and Hail, Caesar!

Working Title's slate includes Bridget Jones's Baby, directed by Sharon Maguire and starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, and Patrick Dempsey; The Snowman, directed by Tomas Alfredson and starring Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, and Val Kilmer; and Baby Driver, directed by Edgar Wright and starring Lily James, Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, and Jamie Foxx.

BBC Films (www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms) is at the forefront of independent filmmaking in the U.K., developing and co-producing around twelve films a year. Headed up by Christine Langan, BBC Films was awarded the Michael Balcon BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema in 2015.

Recent releases include Ricky Gervais' David Brent: Life on the Road and Phillipa Lowthorpe's Swallows and Amazons, currently in cinemas, along with Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach, Stephen Frears' Florence Foster Jenkins, John Crowley's BAFTA and Academy Award-nominated romantic drama Brooklyn, and Nicholas Hytner's BAFTA-nominated comedy/drama The Lady in the Van.

Upcoming releases include Mick Jackson's Denial, Louis Theroux's My Scientology Movie (in U.K. cinemas on 7th October), Ken Loach's winner of the 2016 Cannes International Film Festival Palme d'Or I, Daniel Blake (in cinemas 21st October), Amma Asante's A United Kingdom (released in cinemas 25th November), Ritesh Batra's The Sense of an Ending, Gurinder Chadha's Viceroy's House, Lone Scherfig's Their Finest, and James Marsh's The Mercy.

BBC Films' eclectic back catalogue includes Mr. Holmes, Far from the Madding Crowd, Pride, Saving Mr. Banks, Philomena, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, My Week with Marilyn, WE NEED TO TALK About Kevin, Jane Eyre, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Made in Dagenham, An Education, In the Loop, Fish Tank, My Summer of Love, Truly Madly Deeply, and Billy Elliot.

In addition to Victoria and Abdul and Darkest Hour, current and upcoming domestic releases from Focus include Kubo and the Two Strings, the new family event movie from animation studio LAIKA, directed by Travis Knight with a voice cast that includes Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara, George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Vaccaro, and Matthew McConaughey; Tom Ford's romantic thriller Nocturnal Animals, starring Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal, which world-premiered earlier this month at the 2016 Venice International Film Festival; the real-life story of heroism The Zookeeper's Wife, directed by Niki Caro and starring Jessica Chastain; Colin Trevorrow's The Book of Henry, starring Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, and Jacob Tremblay; the action spy thriller The Coldest City, directed by David Leitch and starring Charlize Theron and James McAvoy; the untitled new film from Paul Thomas Anderson starring Daniel Day-Lewis; J.A. Bayona's visually spectacular drama A Monster Calls, starring Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Lewis MacDougall, and Liam Neeson, which world-premiered earlier this month at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival; and Jeff Nichols' Loving, based on the love story of Richard and Mildred Loving, portrayed by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, which world-premiered at the 2016 Cannes International Film Festival.

Focus Features, Universal Pictures International, and Working Title Films are part of NBCUniversal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. NBCUniversal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.

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