Principal photography began yesterday in downtown Chicago on Mandate Pictures' comedy Stranger Than Fiction directed by Marc Forster. Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah and Emma Thompson star in the comedy about one character's search for his author.
The film was written by Zach Helm, his first produced screenplay, and is being produced by Lindsay Doran. Stranger Than Fictionwill be released by Columbia Pictures in the United States and a number of international territories.
In the film, Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick, an IRS Agent whose world is turned upside-down when he begins to hear his life being chronicled by a narrator only he can hear. The Narrator, Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson), a nearly forgotten author of tragic novels, is struggling to complete her latest and best book, unaware that her protagonist is alive and uncontrollably guided by her words. Fiction and reality collide when the bewildered and hilariously resistant Harold hears the Narrator say that events have been set in motion that will lead to his imminent death.
Desperate to escape his fate, Harold seeks help from eccentric English professor Dr. Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) and finds unexpected comfort in a burgeoning romance with a defiant audit subject, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Unluckily for Harold, Kay's impatient publishers have unleashed a stern assistant named Penny Escher (Queen Latifah) to help the author finish her book and finish off Harold Crick.
Your Talkback on this Story