Per Deadline, Golden Globe winners Andrew Garfield (Tick, Tick… Boom!) and Claire Foy (The Crown) have officially signed on for the leading roles in the upcoming film adaptation of The Magic Faraway Tree, based on Enid Blyton’s 1943 children’s novel of the same name.
Garfield and Foy are expected to play married couple, Tim and Polly. After moving to a remote English countryside, their family is introduced to a magical tree and its extraordinary and eccentric residents. Production is currently slated to begin sometime next month.
“To have two actors of the quality of Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy is a dream for any screenwriter,” writer Simon Farnaby said in a statement. “I have long admired their warmth, wit and lightness of touch. Plus they have the power to imbue their characters’ complexities that I don’t have the power to write . . . I mean, even Enid Blyton might be impressed we got Spider-Man and the Queen.”
What to expect from The Magic Faraway Tree?
The Magic Faraway Tree will be directed by Ben Gregor from a screenplay written by Paddington 2 scribe Simon Farnaby. The film is executive produced by Simon Williams, Joe Simpson, Jonathan Bross, and Tamara Birkemoe, with Pippa Harris, Nicolas Brown, Danny Perkins, and Jane Hooks producing. It is a production by Neal Street Productions, Elysian Film Group and Ashland Hill Media Finance.
“The film follows Polly and Tim and their children Beth, Joe and Fran — a modern family who find themselves forced to relocate to the remote English countryside,” reads the synopsis. “Soon after the family’s arrival in the countryside, the children discover a magical tree and its extraordinary and eccentric residents including treasured characters Moonface, Silky, Dame Washalot and Saucepan Man. At the top of the tree, they are transported to spectacular and fantastical lands and, through the joys and challenges of their adventures, the family learn to reconnect and value each other for the first time in years.”
