Great Expectations (2012 film)

Great Expectations is a 2012 British film adaptation of Charles Dickens novel of the same name. The film was directed by Mike Newell, with the adapted screenplay by David Nicholls, and stars Jeremy Irvine, Helena Bonham Carter, Holliday Grainger, Ralph Fiennes and Robbie Coltrane. It was distributed by Lionsgate.

The film is the seventh version of Charles Dickens novel of the same name. David Nicholls was asked to develop the screenplay after he had worked on the 2007 film And When Did You Last See Your Father?, and while he was working on an adaptation for television of Thomas Hardys Tess of the dUrbervilles for the BBC. He had worked with producers Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley on the 2007 film, and they approached him to work on Great Expectations. During the development of the film, Nicholls published the novel One Day, which was subsequently adapted into a film in 2011. Nicholls described in interviews that he saw Dickens work as his childhood defining novel, having first read the book when he was fourteen and it having since remained his favourite. He also praised the 1946 version, directed by David Lean.Mike Newell was looking to develop Dickens Dombey and Son for the screen, but after it didnt go ahead, he was told about Nicholls script. The two worked together on further developing the screenplay and finding the funding for the film. Nicholls thought there was a problem with choosing the ending for the film, as Dickens wrote both a downbeat ending and a more positive version. He described their solution as, What weve tried to do is to make it work as a love story without sentimentalising the book, having criticised the ending of the David Lean version of the film. ........

Source: Wikipedia