It was an Accident

Synopsis

It was in part thanks to the success of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels that It Was An Accident got off the shelf and into production. Screenwriter Ol Parker first got hold of the novel by Walthamstow-based former probation officer Jeremy Cameron in 1996, adapted it and teamed up with producer Paul Goodman. But film executives didn't get the stylised vocabulary and frenetic pacing - it was way too ahead of its time. But in the post-Lock, Stock world, Parker's script, now with director Metin Huseyin on board, found an enthusiastic backer in Lottery franchise studio Pathe Pictures.



Goodman is quick to point out the differences between his film and Guy Ritchie's. "They share similar language but this has heart and soul," he says. The film stars two of Britain's most promising young actors: Chiwetel Ejiofor (most recently wowing theatre audiences in Blue Orange at the National Theatre) and Max Beesley (reunited with Metin Huseyin after the BBC serial Tom Jones).



It was the richness of the language in Cameron's novel that appealed to Parker and Goodman. That Parker and Huseyin had both lived in Walthamstow gave them an insight into the area's particular brand of East End culture and helped turn what could have been just another London gangster flick into a film that, as Huseyin says, is "very funny about violence, but underpinned by a serious story about a guy you want to succeed trying to go straight".



The film is looking for spots on the international festival circuit. "We'd like to see it at Toronto because it's a multi-cultural town that we know will respond to the film and that will help with a US sale," says Goodman.

Details

Year

2000

Type of film

Features

Director

Metin Huseyin

Music

Courtney Pine.

Dir

Metin Huseyin.

Exec prods

Alexis Lloyd, Andrea Calderwood, David Barron.

Prod

Paul Goodman.

Scr

Ol Parker, based on the novel by Jeremy Cameron.

DoP

Guy Dufaux.

Prod des

Joseph Bennett.

Main cast

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Max Beesley, James Bolam, Nicola Stapleton, Neil Dudgeon, Hugh Quarshie, Thandie Newton, Louis-Rae Beadle, Jacqueline Williams, Sidh Solanki, Cavan Clerkin.

Budget

£2.8m.

Funding

Pathe Pictures, Arts Council of England.

Genre

Production status

Complete

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Last updated 24th June 2005