Projects matching: Stephen Norrington

Synopsis

The clock is ticking towards The Last Minute, but no one knows it. No one except Billy Byrne (Max Beesley) - young, cool and talented, he's the Next Big Thing. At least that's what the London glitterazzi are saying, on the streets, in the clubs, in the Business. But the glitterazzi turn out to be wrong and Billy Byrne is all over in a split second. His world detonates. His self-esteem splinters.  Suddenly he's on a rollercoaster ride into the London underworld - a dangerous land of murderers, thieves and talent agents.

Synopsis

The Last Minute is a darkly comic tale of fame, delusion and the high price of failure. Young, good-looking and talented Billy Byrne (Max Beesley) is on the brink of 'making it big'. He's the 'talk of the town', the 'next big thing'. His agent, his best mate and his girlfriend all know it - come Monday, Billy will be up there with the 'big boys'. But Monday brings disaster, Billy's anticipated triumphant debut flops. His world falls apart. As Billy desperately tries to rationalise his failure the abyss of obscurity looms before him and a dark world of murderers and thieves beckons.

Synopsis

Stephen Norrington, best known for splashy special effects action movies such as Blade, returns to home soil with The Last Minute, a black comedy about the lure of fame and the price of failure, produced by his regular collaborator Matthew Justice.



Max Beesley, the boyish charmer who became a teen heartthrob in the recent BBC adaptation of Tom Jones, takes the lead as Billy Byrne, a supercool, supertalented young artist who is the toast of the town. But, just as he begins to get used to the heady cocktail of success, his star crash-lands back on earth and he finds himself caught up in a dangerous world of crime and murder.



The film was, says Justice, "a fantastic opportunity to do a movie that does not rely on all the genre trickery of our previous pictures, although naturally, old habits die hard!"



Thanks to Palm Pictures, Justice and Norrington were allowed to make the film exactly as they had always planned, with "a small, young, talented and hungry crew working with a great cast in and around London," explains Justice. Shot last summer in East London and at Three Mills Studios, the film features a supporting cast of new and old faces alongside Beesley, including Jason Isaacs as a sledgehammer-wielding bootboy with a taste for crooning, veteran baddie Udo Kier and newly crowned king of the wideboys, Frank Harper.