EXCLUSIVE: Mare of Easttown star Angourie Rice and Spike Fearn (Ella McCay) are leading a UK-set romcom for Focus Features, Working Title and Parkville Pictures.
CC: Emily is the debut directorial feature project for Alicia MacDonald, who has helmed episodes of Lena Dunham’s Too Much, Stephen Merchant’s The Outlaws and Kirstie Swain’s Pure for Netflix, BBC-Amazon and Channel 4 respectively. Rachel Hirons (A Guide to Second Date Sex) is penning the movie, which has just started principal photography on location in Manchester, UK.
CC: Emily follows a lovesick musician, played by Fearn. When he is given the wrong number for his dream girl, he teams up with a driven psychology student (Rice) to find her. Together, they spark a hilarious campus-wide frenzy that tests their own hearts and ambitions along the way.
Australian star Rice broke out playing Kate Winslet’s daughter Siobhan in HBO smash Mare of Easttown and also appeared in Black Mirror episode ‘Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too’ opposite Miley Cyrus. She played Betty Brant in a number of Spider Man movies and we revealed last month she is leading Canadian-Belgian psychological thriller Steal Away.
Fearn, meanwhile, recently wrapped production on James L. Brooks’ Ella McCay with an ensemble cast that includes Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson, Ayo Edebiri, Albert Brooks and Kumail Nanjiani. Brooks’ first movie for 13 years is about an idealistic young politician who juggles familial issues and a challenging work life while preparing to take over the job of her mentor.
Working Title bosses Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner will produce CC: Emily for the studio, which is also currently producing Netflix series Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole. Olivier Kaempfer is producing for Polite Society maker Parkville. Focus has worldwide rights on the movie and Universal Pictures International will handle international distribution for the studio.
MacDonald is repped by Jessica Sykes at Independent.
