My Fair Lady 2012--more info

A'ight, I've posted about the new My Fair Lady film already, due out December 2012. I got my info from one blog but yesterday I decided to look into it some more to see about any new info. I didn't find any newly published info, but I did find more about the project in general.

Interesting things from the above article:

"The new film will use the original songs of the much-loved Broadway show, and will not alter its 1912 setting, but Kenworthy and Mackintosh intend where possible to shoot the film on location in the original London settings of Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Tottenham Court Road, Wimpole Street, and Ascot racecourse. The filmmaking team will also look to adapt Alan Jay Lerner's book more fully for the screen by drawing additional material from Pygmalion - - George Bernard Shaw's play that served as the source material for the musical -- in order to dramatize as believably as possible for present-day audiences the emotional highs and lows of Eliza Doolittle as she undergoes the ultimate makeover, transforming under the tutelage of Professor Henry Higgins from a Cockney flower girl to a lady...

'My Fair Lady's extraordinary tale of a man turning a flower girl into a lady, and then falling for her, combines one of the most powerful narratives in world literature with some of the wittiest and most winning songs ever written for the stage,' said Mackintosh. 'People everywhere will fall in love again with Lerner and Loewe's miraculous songs set in a big, gorgeous film with contemporary stars, a more realistically achieved vision of Edwardian London, and a touch more Pygmalion at the heart of this powerfully emotional story of a girl's transformation. The classic story of a flower girl transformed into an instant sensation couldn't be more timely in a contemporary world obsessed with overnight celebrity.'"

Ok, I'm excited about the more realistic view they're taking. I'm very intrigued about filming on location and drawing more from Pygmalion, one of my favorite plays. BUT what's with Mackintosh (producer of MFL and also working on Les Mis) thinking that Higgins falls for Eliza? I've written an entire report on how Shaw's Pygmalion is different from Ovid's bc Higgins doesn't fall in love with Eliza. He becomes obsessed with her yes,“(a)s if I ever stop thinking about the girl and her confounded vowels and consonants. I’m worn out, thinking about her, and watching her lips and her teeth and her tongue, not to mention her soul, which is the quaintest of all”. He does not fall in love with Eliza. Comes to rely on her? yes, falls in love? no. Higgins is a confirmed bachelor and he stays that way. Read Shaw's epilogue people! It's a disservice to Eliza to think that she would end up with Higgins. She doesn't, she marries Freddy, supports him and stays a fixture in Higgins and Pickering's lives. I'll publish my paper on here if you want to hear more about this.This point of Shaw's Pygmalion is a real sore point for me.

Anyway, to recap: Carrie Mulligan is playing Eliza. Emma Thompson who is doing the screenplay wants Hugh Grant to play Higgins (I don't!) but he has not yet said if he's interested.