Anthony Hopkins, who has embodied a cast of real-life characters in his long career, ranging from Richard Nixon (in Nixon) and Sigmund Freund (Freud’s Last Session) to Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock), and Adolf Hitler (1981 TV movie The Bunker), is set to play composer George Frideric Handel in the upcoming feature The King of Covent Garden.
Minamata filmmaker Andrew Levitas is attached to direct the biopic focused on how the German-British Baroque composer created his 1741 masterpiece Messiah. Tim Slover wrote the screenplay. Dan Lupovitz and Kevan Van Thompson will produce.
Opera star Katherine Jenkins is attached as an executive producer on the project and will be involved as a musical advisor on the project as well as helping with future marketing efforts. Peter Touche (Military Wives, The Son) is also executive producing.
Embankment Films is handling global pre-sales on The King of Covent Garden and will be pitching it to buyers at the Cannes Film Market later this month. The pitch: “a powerfully majestic celebration of genius breaking all the rules to create an anthem inspiring the popular imagination of global audiences.” The film is eying a late fall 2025 release.
Embankment also handled international sales on Hopkins’ The Father, which earned the Welsh actor his second best actor Oscar. His first, of course, came for playing Hannibal Lecter in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs.
In a statement, Levitas said the film’s story will hinge upon “an unlikely pair, who meet each other at their lowest points, and together create a magnificent never-heard-before ‘sound for the people’: the groundbreaking masterpiece Messiah, the annual global bestseller for close to 300 years.” He said Slover’s script “is populated by passionate, real-life experience in all its color and dirt, creating a riveting human story with surprising contemporary relevancy, universal human connectivity and spiritual uplift.”
Hopkins is represented by UTA and Mitch Smelkinson at Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson and Christopher.
