Great Point & Development Partnership Launch Production Slate With Movies From James Norton & ‘ The Iron Lady’ Producer

UK fund manager and film and TV sales company Great Point Media has set up a slate of projects with The Development Partnership, the production arm of UK talent agency The Artists Partnership. Projects on the development slate include film Chasing Agent Freegard, set to star McMafia and Grantchester actor James Norton.

Jim Reeve and Robert Halmi Jr’s Great Point will help develop and produce the features and will also sell them in the international marketplace. First to be announced are features Let It Go, Chasing Agent Freegard and Rose.

Let It Go combines Great Point and The Development Partnership with The Iron Lady and Belle producer Damian Jones. The film will chart the story of UK IT pioneer Stephanie Shirley. Shirley was a child refugee who became a trailblazing entrepreneur, driven philanthropist and computing pioneer. Her tech business, which she set up in 1962 at her kitchen table, grew to be worth more than £2.6B. Shirley took legal action to allow her most loyal employees to be given shares in the business, and when she floated her company in 1993, 70 of them became millionaires alongside her. Her memoir is being adapted by Robyn Charteris.

Chasing Agent Freegard is being developed with Norton who will star and serve as executive producer. The film, from Captain Phillips co-producer Michael Bronner, is based on the true story of con man Robert Hendy-Freegard, who masqueraded as an MI5 agent and fooled several people into going underground for fear of assassination by the IRA. Norton will produce via his recently launched banner Rabbit Track Pictures.

As previously announced, Rose is a dark exploration of one couple’s relationship that examines the pressures of dependency, illness, guilt, loneliness and love. It was written by first-time feature writer Matt Stokoe, and will be helmed by first-time directorJennifer Sheridan. It stars Stokoe (Jamestown) and Sophie Rundle (Peaky Blinders) and is co-produced with their production entity Bone Garden, Mini Productions.

Reeve, co-founder of Great Point Media, commented, “This collaboration represents an exciting and decisive move forward in our strategy to build projects from root to branch with trusted partners, and follows three years of great work with the team at TDP, developing projects with and for their clients.”

Producer Jones said of Let It Go: “What a wonderful moment to tell this story of a child refugee who became a multimillionaire. Dame Shirley’s work ethic, moral compass and ethos of giving back fly in the face of the entitlement-ridden times we’re living in.”

According to The Development Partnership and Great Point Media, further collaborations will be announced in the coming months.