Black Beauty (Mackenzie Foy, Kate Winslet) (2020)

[Canada]

Source

Foy will play the lead in the latest adaptation of Anna Sewell’s classic equine novel, from 'Adolescence' director Ashley Avis, with Winslet providing the voice of the horse.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms actress Mackenzie Foy and Oscar-winner Kate Winslet (The Reader) have signed on to star in a new reboot of Black Beauty, based on the best-selling children's classic by Anna Sewell.

Adolescence director Ashley Avis will helm the new Black Beauty, adapting the script herself from Sewell's novel, which is told as a fictional autobiography of the titular wild horse. In a significant change from Sewell's book, in which Black Beauty is a carriage horse, in the new adaptation, she is a a wild mustang captured on the Wyoming Plains.

Foy will play a 17-year-old girl whose bond with Black Beauty helps her overcome the death of her parents. Winslet will voice Black Beauty's inner thoughts.

Jeremy Bolt and Robert Kulzer will produce Black Beauty for Constantin Film, with Martin Moszkowicz executive producing.

Mister Smith Entertainment is handling world sales and will be introducing the project to buyers next week in Cannes.

Black Beauty has been adapted multiple times, for film and television, most recently in 1994 in a version starring Sean Bean and David Thewlis, with Alan Cumming as the voice of the horse.

[Aclea]

Sounds atrocious and the usual case of just using the title for a completely unrelated horse story. The 1994 version is the only one made by people who bothered to read the book.

[Poya]

Wow. Winslet will finally play someone that isn’t a crying woman.

[Himmel]

Straight To Disney+

[rooboy78]

Originally Posted by Himmel

Straight To Disney+

Of course the horse is going to talk now. Every damn animal movie these days the animal has to talk. What happened to the good animal movies they used to make where the animal’s expressions did all the talking. Now we have to have some cheesy narration that literally SPELLS EVERYTHING OUT FOR US. Even the new Call of the Wild, which stupidly used a CGI dog anyway, they had to have Harrison Ford’s narration spelling out everything the dog was thinking. I don’t know why they think audiences are so dumb these days that they have to pander to them.

[Aclea]

You do know the original novel is narrated by the horse?

[rooboy78]

Originally Posted by Aclea

You do know the original novel is narrated by the horse?

Well even if the novel is that doesn’t mean the movie has to be. The version from the 70’s didn’t have the horse telling us everything and it worked fine. Print is a different medium than film so you need to do more telling one a novel than you need to in a movie.

[Aclea]

The 70s version, like this one, had nothing to do with the book: the 1994 version was narrated by the horse, reflecting the whole point of the novel - to show the suffering working horses endured from the horse's point of view. And since horses are not the most facially oe emotionally expressive of animals, that inability to convey those thoughts and emotions visually has always been why in all but the 1994 film the focus has always been on the humans rather than the horse in all the other screen versions that only use the title and relegate the horse to a moving prop.

[Himmel]

http://youtu.be/DpZ3yZhsWZE

[Star Lord]

Looks good!

[Canada]

Review by Monica Castillo

[brooks101189]

Aside from Beauty's origin and the genderflip nature of the script, it is pretty much close to the original story (right down to the hardships Beauty put up with), just in a more modern setting.

[Monterey Jack]

What a beautiful film. This one really tugged at the ol' heartstrings. Yeah, there are flashes of Disney-fied corn, but the aching soulfulness of the underlying story shone through. And it looked and sounded wonderful. Highly recommended!