Focus Features to Distribute Director Joe Wright's 'Anna Karenina'

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Focus Features will distribute the Joe Wright-directed adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic Anna Karenina in the United States in the second half of 2012. Universal Pictures International will distribute the movie internationally.

Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Johnson, Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen and Emily Watson star in the adaptation written by Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love). Filming begins in the U.K. and Russia this month.

Working Title co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are producing with Paul Webster.

“Joe Wright is a master filmmaker, and with Tom Stoppard’s brilliant screenplay this Anna Karenina will be full of both pageantry and emotion," said Focus Features CEO James Schamus. "To realize Joe’s vision, we have the perfect producing partners in Working Title and Paul Webster, whose acumen is unsurpassed. With Keira Knightley playing this iconic role and a splendid cast supporting her, today’s moviegoers will be drawn to this powerful story.”

Wright previously made Pride & Prejudice and Atonement with Focus and Working Title.

Working Title has Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Contraband; Senna; Johnny English Reborn; and Everybody Loves Whales forthcoming. Focus most recently released The Debt and One Day.