Beauty pageants have been fodder for on screen comedy before, notably in Drop Dead Gorgeous and the Miss Congeniality movies. Now a true-life tale of show disruption is headed to cinemas via Misbehaviour, which will star Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jessie Buckley.
BAFTA-scoring director Philippa Lowthorpe will call the shots, working from a script by Rebecca Frayn and Gaby Chiappe. The film will be based on what happened during the 1970 Miss World pageant in London, where the newly formed Women's Liberation Movement invaded the stage, surprising host Bob Hope and claiming that beauty shows demeaned women in front of 100 million viewers on TV. When the show resumed, there was further controversy when Miss Grenada became the first black woman to win the crown.
While the rights to this one will be for sale at the AFM, Pathe is already aboard to distribute it in the UK, but has yet to announce a release date. Knightley will next be seen in The Nutcracker And The Four Realms (2 November), followed by Colette (due on 11 January next year) and The Aftermath (1 March), which has just put a trailer online.
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