Jack O’Connell and Odessa A’zion have signed to lead The End of the World as We Know It, a Studiocanal comedy-drama about two outsiders on a pilgrimage to prove the earth is flat. Cameras roll in Canada in November. Tom Berkeley and Ross White, who won the Oscar for best live action short and a BAFTA for An Irish Goodbye in 2023, write and direct. The film is their first feature.
O’Connell, a BAFTA winner who stars in the recent Danny Boyle film Ink, and A’zion, a BAFTA nominee for Marty Supreme, play star-crossed loners who meet along the way. The story is billed as an “unlikely adventure in truth and love.”
Berkeley and White said they found the material in an unlikely place. They said it speaks to a shared search for meaning, belonging and love in a more divided world. The pair added that they are fortunate to have O’Connell and A’zion bring the characters to life.
Studiocanal is financing the film in full. Film4 will co-finance and executive produce. Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title produce with Olivier Kaempfer of Parkville Pictures. Anna Marsh, Ron Halpern and Joe Naftalin executive produce for Studiocanal, Katherine Pomfret and Thea Paulett for Working Title, and Amanda Drake for Notable Studios.
Studiocanal will release the film in theaters across its territories: the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Benelux, Australia and New Zealand. It also handles worldwide sales.
The project continues a partnership between Studiocanal and Working Title, which recently released Pressure. Working Title’s other recent titles include Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Crime 101 and The Sheep Detectives, with Werwulf on the way.
A comedy that treats flat-earth belief as a starting point for romance carries obvious risks, and the studio has not said how the script handles the theory itself. The financing structure gives the filmmakers backing from a single major studio and a public broadcaster’s film arm, a setup that usually leaves a first-time feature team room to experiment. No release date has been announced.
