Famous Five big-screen adaptation to shoot this summer
Andreas Ulmke-Smeaton and Ewa Karlström of Sam Film, who produced the five instalments of Germany’s most popular children’s film series, The Wild Soccer Bunch, will this summer launch production on an exciting project: the big-screen adaptation of The Famous Five adventures created by British author Enid Blyton. The film, entitled Fünf Freunde (like the books’ German title), will be helmed by Mike Marzuk, who worked with Sam Film on teen flicks Summer (2008) and Rock it! (2010).
Enid Blyton (1897-1968) is the most widely read children’s author in the world. Her 700 novels sold over 600m copies. The Famous Five series alone sold 100m copies, including 25m in Germany.
In the film, the four children (Julian, Dick, Ann and George), accompanied as always by their dog Timmy, spend their first seaside holidays together, but radio messages picked up in an old smugglers’ cave reveal that tomboy Claude’s father has been abducted.
The grown-ups will be played by Michael Fitz, Anna Böttcher, Gustav Peter Wöhler and Anatole Taubmann, and the children by young talents. Valeria Eisenbart (seen in Here Comes Lola! [+see also:
trailer
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Fünf Freunde will be released in Germany next year by Constantin.
(Translated from French)
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