Focus Features Acquires Andrew Scott’s Ian Charleson Biopic ‘Elsinore,’ Eyes Fall Release and Festival Bow (EXCLUSIVE)

Focus Features has acquired “Elsinore,” the Ian Charleson biopic starring Andrew Scott and Oscar winner Olivia Colman, for the U.S. and multiple international territories, Variety has learned exclusively.

The deal closes a competitive bidding war among several studios for the Simon Stone-directed drama and adds a prestige contender to the Focus slate. Eyeing a fall release, the studio is planning a festival launch to kick off the film’s awards run. Sources tell Variety that programmers at each of the fall festivals — Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York — are circling the title, though a premiere venue has yet to be set. Other sources who have seen the film have been ecstatic and overwhelmingly positive about the Scottish actor’s work.

Written by Stephen Beresford, “Elsinore” tells the story of actor Ian Charleson, best known to film audiences as Olympic runner Eric Liddell in the best picture winner “Chariots of Fire.” The film focuses on the final months of Charleson’s life, when he took on the role of “Hamlet” at London’s National Theatre while privately battling AIDS. Charleson died in January 1990 at age 40, just weeks after the run concluded.

Focus Features declined to comment.

Scott, an Emmy and Golden Globe nominee for the miniseries “Ripley” and a BAFTA lead actor nominee for “All of Us Strangers,” stars as Charleson and also produces. Colman plays the doctor who treated him through his illness.

The ensemble includes Billie Piper, Johnny Flynn, Luke Thompson, Monica Dolan, Juliet Stevenson, Joe Locke, Adeel Akhtar, Matthew Beard, David Dawson as filmmaker Derek Jarman, Kadiff Kirwan, Dickie Beau and Peter Mullan.

Alongside Scott, “Elsinore” was produced by Andrea Occhipinti of Lucky Red (“Il Divo,” “Everybody Knows”) and Gaby Tana of Magnolia Mae Films (“Philomena,” “The Dig”), with Pete Shilaimon and Mickey Liddell of LD Entertainment, Stefano Massenzi and Carolyn Marks Blackwood. The film comes from StudioCanal, LD Entertainment, Lucky Red and Magnolia Mae Films, with Stone shooting on location across the U.K. earlier this year. The artisans team includes cinematographer Mike Eley and editor Valerio Bonelli.

The acquisition adds “Elsinore” to a Focus awards slate that has quickly become one of the fall’s most eclectic. The studio’s historic year began with the breakout horror hit “Obsession,” from debut director Curry Barker, which became its highest-grossing film ever. Still to come are a “Sense and Sensibility” remake starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Robert Eggers’ gothic horror “Werwulf” and Paul Greengrass’ “The Uprising” with Andrew Garfield and Jamie Bell.

With “Elsinore,” Focus adds a genuine theater-world awards play to pair with its starrier titles — one built around a lead performance that had studios competing well before a festival was even named.