Academy Award-winning actor Michael Caine (The Dark Knight, The Quiet American) will star in Best Sellers, which will mark Lina Roessler’s (Little Whispers: The Vow, Mustard Seed) directorial debut. Based on Anthony Grieco’s original screenplay which won a 2015 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting award, Best Sellers will be an official Canada-UK co-production, produced by Arielle Elwes (Braid), Cassian Elwes (Mudbound, The Butler), Petr Jákl (xXx, Ghoul, Medieval) and Wayne Marc Godfrey (The Foreigner, Wind River) on the UK side and Jonathan Vanger (Wishing Tree Productions: Miss Sloane) and Pierre Even (Item 7: War Witch, The Hummingbird Project) on the Canadian side. Executive producers include Martin Barab, Jere Hausfater, and Mark Damon. Foresight Unlimited will handle International Sales beginning at Cannes, while Cassian Elwes will handle the domestic sale. Filming is set to commence on mid-July, 2019 in Canada.
In a last-ditch effort to save a boutique publishing house, Best Sellers follows an ambitious young editor who goes on a wild book tour with a miserable, sharp-witted, has-been author (Caine) who just wants to live out his days in peace with a bottle of scotch, a cigar, and his orange Tabby cat.
Caine is a multi-award-winning actor, having starred in a multitude of feature films and television projects. He is best-known for The Dark Knight, The Quiet American, The Prestige, The Cider House Rules, Now You See Me and most recently Going in Style. Caine is currently in post-production on Medieval (directed by Petr Jákl and produced by Jákl and Elwes) and Come Away starring Angelina Jolie.
Roessler is a Canadian actor, writer and director. Her previous short films Little Whispers: The Vow and Winter have won several awards and screened at prestigious festivals around the globe. Her feature script, The Rescuer, recently placed in top selections across a number of Canadian competitions and is one of ten scripts selected to partake in the 2019 TIFF Writers’ Studio.
