04/03/2010

82-year-old screen icon Sir Roger Moore, best known for his turn as James Bond, is all set to return to the screen for the first time since 2002’s Boat Trip with Connemara Days, a romantic comedy about the making of John Ford’s 1952 classic The Quiet Man.

The film, which follows the romantic journey of an 18-year-old girl who falls in love with one of Ford’s assistant directors, will be shot this summer in the Irish village of Cong where the Hollywood film starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara was filmed. Kevin Connor (Marco Polo) will direct while Causeway Pictures will produce with the support of Fáilte Ireland. Aidan Quinn, Geraldine Chaplin, Stacy Keach, Sarah Bolger and Thomas Dekker comprise the rest of the cast while Moore will also serve as Executive Producer.

Moore said, “The Quiet Man was undoubtedly the best movie John Ford ever directed. It is also one of my all-time favourite films. The opportunity to revisit the time when Hollywood arrived in Ireland to shoot it was simply too delicious an opportunity to miss.”

Fáilte Ireland’s Brian Quinn said, “The involvement of established film stars like Sir Roger Moore and the list of other stars augers well for Connemara Days providing a much needed economic stimulus to the region.”

Meanwhile, Grand Pictures will produce Ian Fitzgibbons’ new feature Death of a Superhero. Based on the eponymous novel by Anthony McCarten, the film deals with a teen obsessed with sex, music, videogames and drugs but who also suffers from a life-threatening form of leukemia. Shooting begins late summer in Dublin.