Call it Pitch Perfect meets Trainspotting.
Rob Roy director Michael Caton-Jones has begun production on a feature film adaptation of Alan Warner’s 1998 novel The Sopranos about a group of devil-may-care Catholic schoolgirls who travel to Edinburgh for a choir competition.
Sony Pictures International Productions (SPIP), the local arm of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group, is producing the film together with Caton-Jones’ Four Point Play Pictures and Sigma Films, in association with Screen Scotland.
Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly, who most recently wrote the music and lyrics for John McPhail’s Anna and the Apocalypse, are the music producers on the project.
The film is currently untitled but will be given a different name than the book to avoid confusion with the HBO series The Sopranos and the upcoming prequel movie based on it.
Set in Scotland in the 1990s and taking place over the course of a single day, Caton-Jones’ film follows the choir of Catholic schoolgirls who are in Edinburgh for a music competition but are more interested in “going mental” — drinking, partying and hooking up — than in winning the competition. A cult hit in Britain, Warner’s novel has previously been turned into a stage play by Lee Hall.
Eve Austin, Tallulah Greive, Abigail Lawrie, Sally Messham, Rona Morison and Marli Siu star in the film alongside Kate Dickie and David Hayman. The film will shoot entirely in Scotland.
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“Since optioning Alan Warner’s novel The Sopranos in 1998, the project’s development has been a labor of love, and I am absolutely thrilled to be making the film now,” said Caton-Jones. “It was always fundamental that the spirit of these fantastic, strong female characters was brought to life accurately — and our six hugely talented young actresses are doing that in spades. I am also ecstatic to return to Scotland, my homeland, to shoot this particular film.”
Caton-Jones has adapted Warner’s book for the screen, together with Alan Sharp and Rachel Hirons, and is producing alongside Four Point Play’s Laura Viederman and Sigma Films’ Brian Coffey. Jennifer Armitage of Creative Scotland and Warner are executive producers. Creative executive Luke Scrase is overseeing for SPIP.
“It’s hard not to understand Michael’s passion for this material and why he bought the novel 20 years ago out of his own pocket,” said SPIP head Laine Kline. “This project provides the audience with a rare, unadulterated look into the lives of these young women as they face life’s challenges with raw humor and courage.”
SPIP’s latest film, Slaughterhouse Rulez, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, is currently on release in the U.K. The company is also in production on Greed, directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Steve Coogan, David Mitchell and Isla Fisher.
