Regency-Set Film 'Mr. Malcolm’s List' To Debut in Theaters This July
After over a decade of development, the regency romantic comedy Mr. Malcolm's List is finally heading for a big-screen release. Based on the novel of the same name by Suzanne Allain, the 1800s-era story revolves around the titular character, a too-picky suitor in search of a wife, who discovers no actual human woman meets the requirements of his "list." While he puzzles over this strange phenomenon, one of his jilted could-have-beens, Julia Thistlewaite, invites her BFF, Selina Dalton, to London as part of a plot to give him his comeuppance and exact revenge.
It's been a long road to the big screen for Mr. Malcolm's List. Screenwriter Allain self-published the title as a novel in 2009 and then adapted it into a film script. The script floated around Hollywood long enough that in 2015, The Black List picked it as one of the year's best-unproduced scripts, with a podcast episode dedicated to a full reading. It caught the attention of director Emma Holly Jones. She brought independent producers aboard with the idea to make a color-conscious film, using a diverse cast to reclaim historical narratives.
Unfortunately, they couldn't get a feature film financed, so instead, they produced a short film version in 2018, starring Gemma Chan (Humans) as Julia, Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) as Selina Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù (Gangs of London) as Mr. Malcolm, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Dracula) as Malcolm's friend, Lord Cassidy. The film was released as an online-only feature on Feb. 14, 2019. The success of the short film caught the attention of Berkley Press, which republished the novel in 2020 and secured financing for a feature-length movie distributed by independent studio Bleecker Street.
