Kenneth Branagh and Kate Winslet reunite for literary adaptation
16th January 2012
Kenneth Branagh and Kate Winslet are to reunite as director and actress for the first time in 16 years for a new film adaptation of Mary Ann Shaffer's acclaimed 2008 novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
The pair last collaborated in 1996 when Branagh directed and starred in a film version of Hamlet opposite Winslet's Ophelia and the former told Variety magazine he is looking forward to working on 'a beautiful romance, which is very touching and uplifting'.
Shaffer's epistolary novel is set in 1946 and takes the form of a series of letters between the journalist Juliet Ashton and the titular organisation, which had been set up during World War II as a cover for curfew-breaking.
It reached the number one spot in the New York Times Best Seller List in 2009 and has been adapted for the screen by Don Roos, who also wrote the screenplay for the 2008 film version of John Grogan's Marley & Me.
Filming is scheduled to begin in March, with the film set to be released at the start of 2013.