No matter how many schmaltzy entertainments he writes and/or directs, Richard Curtis will always be the co-creator of Blackadder (along with Rowan Atkinson and Ben Elton). I just wonder how someone so clearly witty and intelligent can live with Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason on his conscience.
I doubt he’ll reverse this schmaltzy course with The Boat That Rocked, his sophomore directorial effort after the lucrative (and played-to-death-on-cable) Love Actually. Kenneth Branagh and Rhys Ifans will star as a pair of deejays who run a pirate radio station (on a boat!) during the 1970s. The water gets awfully choppy when Ifans falls for his best mate’s girlfriend, an American lass played by January Jones. I can’t tell from Variety‘s plot synopsis if Jones plays Branagh’s girlfriend, or if the pal in question is some other, as-yet-uncast British “Baxter” (i.e. Colin Firth). Either way, I’m sure the film will end with the entire cast rushing all over London as they try to reunite the meant-to-be-together Ifans and Jones.
This is one of those Universal/Working Title co-productions, which means the latter’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner will produce (with Hillary Bevan-Jones and Curtis). The film begins shooting this March in Lon-don.