Relativity a 'Pretender'
Financing arranged for $18 mil McGregor starrer
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The $18 million pic, written and directed by Peter Capaldi, starts shooting next January in London.
McGregor, fresh from his sell-out West End run in "Guys and Dolls," will play four roles in two time settings -- 1938 and 1745.
Script concerns two ambitious producers in the 1930s who hire the hell-raising Hollywood legend Leslie Grangely to play Bonnie Prince Charlie in a movie about Scotland's Jacobite Rebellion in the 18th century.
But when Grangely hits the bottle and disappears, they trick an unassuming extra with an uncanny likeness to the star to fill his shoes.
McGregor plays Grangely and the extra, as well as the two characters they play in the film-within-a-film -- Bonnie Prince Charlie, dubbed the "Great Pretender," and the double used by the prince to confuse his enemies.
Richard Holmes and Ron Fogelman of London-based Gruber Films are producing the pic.
Relativity, co-managed by Lynwood Spinks and Ryan Kavanaugh, is a film financing and consulting boutique that has previously raised more than $1.5 billion in production and distribution coin for the likes of Marvel, Atmosphere Entertainment and Arclight. Most recently it helped to bankroll Universal's "Land of the Dead" and New Line's "The Whole Truth."
Relativity has committed to provide financing for "The Great Pretender," with Arclight starting pre-sales at Toronto. Gruber, which has a development deal with U.K. distrib Momentum Pictures, is also bringing coin to the table, including equity from the Glasgow Film Fund and a U.K. sale-and-leaseback deal.
Capaldi is an actor-turned-auteur who won the Academy Award for his 1995 short "Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life."
