Jamie Bell and Margaret Qualley will portray the legendary dance pair Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the biopic “Fred & Ginger” for Amazon Studios and Automatik.
Bell and Qualley will also produce. Bell showed his skills as a dancer in his breakout performance in 2000’s “Billy Elliot.” Qualley has performed extensively as a dancer, as seen in FX’s “Fosse/Verdon” and the viral Kenzo perfume ad directed by Spike Jonze.
Astaire and Rogers starred in 10 movies together, starting with “Flying Down to Rio” in 1933 and ending with “The Barkleys of Broadway” in 1949. The pic plans to examine what individually drove Astaire and Rogers while celebrating the creative magic between them. It will tell the real love story between these two legends both on and offscreen.
Jonathan Entwistle (“The End of the F***ing World”) will direct from a script to be penned by Arash Amel (“A Private War”). Amel will also produce along with Fred Berger (“La La Land”) and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (“Honey Boy”) of Automatik. Max Minghella will executive produce under his and Bell’s Blank Tape banner. Gemma Levinson will be overseeing for Automatik.
Bell starred as Bernie Taupin in “Rocketman” and will be seen opposite Michael B. Jordan in “Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse.” Qualley is currently filming “Maid” for Netflix and starred opposite Brad Pitt as a follower of Charles Manson in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
Entwistle most recently co-created the Netflix series “I Am Not Okay With This” and is currently working on a new universe for the Power Rangers franchise at Hasbro and eOne. Amel wrote “A Private War,” which was nominated for two Golden Globes, and is working on the Netflix sci-fi action movie “Outside the Wire,” starring Anthony Mackie, and inspirational sports movie “Greek Freak” for Disney Plus.
Bell is repped by by UTA and Anonymous Content. Qualley is repped by UTA and Management 360. Amel and Entwistle are repped at Automatik’s sister management company Grandview. The news was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.