Manchester based Honlodge Production, the team behind the Voorman Problem, have announced that development is underway on a feature-length portrait of Morrissey as a young man
The production, currently under the working title of Steven, is a portrait of Morrissey’s early life prior to forming his songwriting partnership with Johnny Marr.
The Smiths, who went on to sell millions of records worldwide, were described by the BBC as “the band that inspired deeper devotion than any British group since The Beatles”.
Director Mark Gill and producer Baldwin Li are joined by producer Orian Williams, whose credits include Control, the critically acclaimed biopic of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis.
The screenplay is written by Mark Gill and William Thacker, whose debut novel Charm Offensive, was released by Legend Press in March 2014.
Director Mark Gill states: “The film covers Morrissey’s life pre-Smiths and is more of a portrait than a conventional biopic. It’s as much a film for non-Morrissey fans as it is for die-hard devotees, but I can’t deny that this is a love letter to Steven Patrick Morrissey and the dark satanic mills of Manchester.”
The team are targeting late 2014 to start principal photography in the UK. The film is being developed with the support of Screen Yorkshire and Creative England.It is not known whether Morrissey, whose biography which detailed much of his early life growing up in 1960’s Manchester, is backing the project
