AFM: Daniel Radcliffe to Play British Olympic Medalist Sebastian Coe

LONDON – Daniel Radcliffe is to play Sebastian Coe, a man famous to one generation of Brits as an Olympic gold medal-winning middle distance runner and to another generation for overseeing the London Olympics 2012 as chairman of the Games’ organizing committee. 

Radcliffe will star as the athlete-turned-Olympics czar in the film Gold, written by Oscar-winning scribe Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) and Will Davies (How to Train Your Dragon).

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The project will be directed by James Watkins, who directed Radcliffe in the box-office horror smash The Woman in Black.

The Gold script tells the story of Coe’s world-famous rivalry with fellow athlete Steve Ovett in the years leading up to the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.

The film will be produced by Joanna Anderson and Vicky Licorish (Small Island) and Kevin Loader (Hyde Park on Hudson).

BBC Films, the stand-alone movie-making arm of the public broadcaster, and the British Film Institute have bankrolled the development of the project with Al Films.

BBC Films chief Christine Langan will executive produce. Financing also is provided by Ingenious Senior Film Fund, represented by Gavin Poolman. 

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Tim Haslam and Hugo Grumbar’s U.K. sales banner Embankment Films will introduce the Radcliffe starrer during the upcoming American Film Market to worldwide buyers.

Gold is based on the acclaimed book The Perfect Distance by Pat Butcher, who also acts as a consultant on the project.

It is aiming to shoot in the U.K. and Russia in April 2014.

Radcliffe is represented by Sue Latimer at ARG in the U.K. and UTA in the U.S.