‘Little Black Book’ Director Nick Hurran to Helm Dusty Springfield Biopic

LONDON — Fairbanks Productions, the U.K.’s big-talking filmmaking banner, is gradually moving through the gears with its movie production slate.

The company held a low-key soiree Thursday evening in the Mayfair hotel in London’s west end ahead of its first trip to Cannes and introduced the female lead on its first production, KTD 2020 while announcing the hire of director Nick Hurran to helm the company’s Dusty Springfield biopic Dusty.

Charlotte Salt is aboard to play the lead in KTD 2020, a sci-fi thriller centered on the world of reality television set in the not-so-distant future, directed by Shaune Harrison. Salt, whose resume includes turns in The Tudors and Beowulf, will star opposite veteran actor  Stacy Keach of Mike Hammer and The Long Riders fame.

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Hurran is to direct Dusty, a biopic of the legendary singer, from a script penned by former newspaper columnist, screenwriter and author Ray Connelly and based on Sharon Davis’s book, A Girl Called Dusty. Connelly wrote the screenplays for That’ll Be The Day and Stardust.

The production banner, set up by Dominick Fairbanks, the great grandson and grandson of Hollywood legends Douglas Fairbanks and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., also said it has employed screenwriter Colin Macdonald to fast-track a script for a £50 million ($81 million) updated version of Ivanhoe, based on Walter Scott‘s classic adventure.

Fairbanks Productions executive producer James Black also announced a partnership with U.K. based investment bank Allegro Capital, headed by familiar international face on the finance scene Patrick Martin.

All the projects will be on show for the first time during this year’s Marche du Film via the company’s pact with L.A. based sales, finance and production label Arclight, headed by Gary Hamilton.