Helen Mirren was the last member of the main cast to sign on. 12-year-old British actress Eliza Bennett stars as the film's young protagonist Meggie Folchart. Mirren will play Meggie’s great aunt, Elinor Loredan. The Inkheart cast also includes Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, Jim Broadbent, Rafi Gavron, and Andy Serkis.
Iain Softley (The Skeleton Key) is directing the film from a screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire (Robots). Cornelia Funke and Barry Mendel are producing. The behind the scenes team includes director of photography Roger Pratt and editor Martin Walsh.
In a statement issued by New Line Cinema, director Softley was quoted as saying, "Inkheart is a magical reality, and Cornelia has provided us with such rich material for the film that bringing it to life is the easy part. Her illustrations and descriptions in the book have provided us with a way to really feel this new world, and that’s what we are creating, a new world brought forward from a book within a book. Everyone can’t wait to get out to Italy and start principal photography and seeing it all come to life – it’s a very exciting journey we’re about to embark on.”
Inkheart will be filmed on location in Liguria, Italy and at Shepperton Studios in England. New Line is planning on releasing Inkheart in 2008.
Inkheart - The Official Synopsis
Inkheart centers on Meggie, a young girl whose father (Brendan Fraser) has a secret ability to bring characters from books to life when he reads them aloud. But when a power-hungry villain from a rare children’s fable kidnaps Meggie’s father to bring others out of the boundaries of fiction, she and a disparate group of friends - both real and magic - embark on an adventure to save him and set things right.
SOURCE: New Line Cinema
