Abbey to star at the box-office
Friday, 27th July 2007
Two major films destined for international cinema screens will feature Westminster Abbey.
The crew shooting Young Victoria were in the Abbey on Thursday 26th July filming scenes which will form the backdrop to a reconstruction of the coronation of Queen Victoria 170 years ago on June 20th 1837.
The film focuses on the pressures facing the young queen as she comes to terms with the huge responsibility facing her when she succeeded her uncle William IV.
Emily Blunt, last seen in the box-office hit The Devil Wears Prada, plays the young Queen Victoria while Rupert Friend, last seen opposite Johnny Depp in The Libertine, plays Prince Albert.
Though much of the action scenes centred on the coronation of Victoria are being filmed at Lincoln Cathedral these will be superimposed on to ‘plates’ of the Abbey which the director Jean Marc Vallée shot in the Abbey on Thursday.
Young Victoria has an imposing list of names behind it. The script has been written by Julian Fellowes, who won an Oscar for Gosford Park, and the executive producer is Hollywood veteran Martin Scorsese.
The second film Stone of Destiny tells the story of the theft by four students of the Stone of Scone from the Abbey on Christmas Day 1950. The film is based on a book about the episode written by one of the students Ian Hamilton, later an eminent Scots lawyer.
The film is directed by Charles Martin Smith and stars Robert Carlyle, Brenda Fricker and Kate Mara. The crew will be shooting overnight in the Abbey, particularly in Poets’ Corner, early in August.
