AFTER 10 years of toil, the top Hollywood actress is ready, the breathtaking Scottish locations are organised and the money – perhaps as much as £30m – is firmly in place. Trouble is, the words aren't finished.
The Hollywood writers' strike, after first bringing the American movie industry to a halt, has now claimed Mary, Queen of Scots as its first major victim this side of the Atlantic.
Shooting of the movie is scheduled for this spring but the movie i
s almost certain to be delayed and may even be scrapped altogether because no one can be found to complete the all-important script.
The huge commercial and critical success of Mel Gibson's Braveheart convinced Hollywood that movie-goers had a big appetite for historical Scottish blockbusters. At various stages, Sean Connery was involved as producer and Bryce Dallas Howard was cast as Mary, before the project evolved into a low-budget TV two-parter, which was shot in Romania in 2003.
The original screenplay was left gathering dust on Warner Brothers' shelves until it was spotted by Scarlett Johansson, who has developed a passion for historical roles. The revived project was announced at the Cannes Film Festival in May. A new producer and director were recruited, Scottish castles and other locations were visited, the budget was in place and the film was quietly moving towards production in April next year.
But producer Iain Smith said the film will probably now have to be postponed. "It's likely," he said. And he admits there is a danger of it collapsing completely. "The film has been trying to get off the ground for a while but this time I thought we had got a fairly clear run at it. It may be the last chance in the sense that you only get so many lives in this industry."
However, writers' strikes in 1988 and 1960 both lasted five months and commentators do not see much prospect of an early resolution to the current six-week-old dispute, which is largely about payments for "new media".
It would take the movie weeks to get back on track and it is not simply a question of preparation and juggling other commitments further down the line. "Scarlett is okay with it," said Smith. "The problem is not so much her, as the impending SAG (Screen Actors' Guild) strike, which would kick in at the end of June."
The film is based on the original screenplay by Cracker writer Jimmy McGovern. But it was being reworked by Ron Harwood, the Oscar-winning writer of the 2002 Holocaust drama The Pianist, when the Hollywood writers' strike began. "We can't get the next iteration of the script until the thing is resolved," said Smith.
McGovern's script focused on the relationship between Mary and the Earl of Bothwell and was described as an "epic love story" and a "psychological romance". The project looked dead and buried before it was taken up earlier this year by Johansson.
John Curran, director of the Somerset Maugham adaptation The Painted Veil, was recruited as director. Smith's team visited numerous locations, including Eilean Donan Castle, and had a definite idea of the ones they wanted to use, though no deals could be made while uncertainty hung over the project. Smith said the film was technically a British production and it might be possible to recruit a British writer.
Anne Hogben, deputy general secretary of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, was sceptical, pointing out that there was American money in the film.
"It would taint the whole project," she said. "It's quite a small world, the film industry."
Belle Doyle, head of the locations section at Scottish Screen, the public film agency, said: "It would have meant a significant spend and a good boost to the economy. And from a cultural point of view it's an important film for Scotland."
The full article contains 652 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
