A new drama about the Bristol-born movie star Cary Grant will not be filmed in the city. The ITV series starring Jason Isaacs as the Hollywood legend is titled Archie and will premiere on a brand new streaming service called ITVX.
Grant was born Archibold Alec Leach in Bristol in 1904, and the four-part series will explore his emigration to America and his three-decade acting career. But the show's writer Jeff Pope told BBC Radio Bristol this morning that the show will mostly be filmed in Liverpool.
Speaking to James Hanson, he said that it will only feature a few shots of Bristol because of budget issues. "We're going to definitely do some stuff that picks up Bristol. The way filming works, we're trying to make the most of our budget, so in fact I'm slightly ashamed to admit that Liverpool is going to double for Bristol."
Read more: When film star Cary Grant visited Bristol 50 years ago
Pope also said that Grant's connection to Bristol played a "massive part" in his interest in writing the show, and that "everything lead back to Bristol" when he was researching Grant's life. Grant was one of the most famous and successful leading men in the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema, and is best known for starring in Alfred Hitchcock films such as North by Northwest and To Catch a Thief.
Further details of casting are set to be announced closer to the start of filming, which will begin at the end of this summer. Archie will premiere on new streaming service ITVX, which launches later this year. The drama will air on ITV several months later.
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