Looks like Great Expectations, the limited series adaption of Charles Dickens’ iconic book, has been launched. Olivia Colman as Miss Havisham and Fionn Whitehead as Pip stare intently into one other’s eyes in these two shots, which showcase the magnificent production’s splendour. Shalom Brune-Franklin, who plays Estella, is shown reading a book while Colman stands in front of her. Two-time Oscar winner Olivia Colman seems to be wearing the character’s wedding attire, and it looks like she’s thoroughly immersed herself in the role. Great Expectations chronicles the maturation and personal growth of an orphan named Pip. Dickens published it as a novel after releasing it as a series of weekly chapters starting in December 1860.
Academy Award contender and BAFTA Award winner Steven Knight is adapting the six-part limited series. Peaky Blinders, starring Cillian Murphy, was one of his prior projects, and the show closed out its last season earlier this year. According to a prior announcement from Knight, he would pen the script and serve as executive producer and director on the project. In addition to the ageless characters and contemporary plot, I picked ‘Great Expectations’ as the next piece to be brought to the cinema.” Class mobility and class stubbornness are shown through an emotive and personal first-person narrative in this novella. Having grown up as the son of a blacksmith, Pip’s journey out of the forge and into society has great meaning for me.”
Great Expectations also stars Ashley Thomas, Johnny Harris, Hayley Squires, Owen McDonnell, Trystan Gravelle, Rudi Dharmalingam, and Matt Berry as well as Colman as Miss Havisham, Whitehead as Pip, and Brune-Franklin as Estella. Tom Hardy, Ridley Scott, Dean Baker, David W. Zucker, Kate Crowe, and Tommy Bulfin will also serve as executive producers on the BBC series presently in production in London. The BBC, Scott Free, and Hardy Son & Baker are collaborating with FX Productions on Great Expectations.
Following A Christmas Carol, Knight’s Great Expectations is the second Dickens adaption he has written. The BBC and FX have commissioned two adaptations of Charles Dickens’ works for this series. Hardy starred in Knight’s Taboo, an award-winning drama series produced by Knight, Chips Hardy, Scott, Baker and Crowe and scripted by Knight.