The director of Senna and Amy has signed on to guide the production of Silver Ghost, a feature-film drama that promises to tell the story of how the “odd-couple” partnership of Charles Rolls and Henry Royce produced one of the world’s best-known and most-luxurious brands.
“What struck me when I read Silver Ghost was how this true story weaves together the lives of five remarkable people that changed the destiny of the Western world, and I am delighted to be working together with the legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese and Anthony Haas to bring it to the screen,” director Asif Kapadia said in a news release.
The film, developed by the late director Richard Attenborough, himself an Academy Award winner, and producer Anthony Haas, is a joint production of Haas’ Zuma Productions and Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions.
“I’ve been captivated by the story of Silver Ghost ever since Lord Richard Attenborough came to me with the project,” Scorsese said in the release, “and I’m thrilled that we’re going to be seeing it through. It’s a project that requires a great and innovative storyteller, and that’s exactly what we have with Asif Kapadia.”
According to the release, the movie’s main characters are Rolls, the “maverick genius;” Royce, an aviation pioneer; their friendship with Lord John Douglas-Scott Montagu; Montagu’s relationship with his wife, Cis; and his secret affair with his secretary, Eleanor Velasco Thornton.
Thornton was the inspiration for the Spirit of Ecstasy mascot, which was sculpted by Charles Sykes.
