It made headlines around the world -- the discovery of the remains of the most notorious king of England that ever lived found buried under a car park in the unassuming English city of Leicester. Richard III's skeleton was discovered in 2012 and, following a remarkable tale of sleuthing involving medieval Welsh poetry and DNA testing, was confirmed as Richard's before being interred in a grand ceremony in Leicester Cathedral.
Now the story is being brought to life for the big screen. Due to premiere at the Toronto Film Festival next month, The Lost King tells the story of real-life writer (and Richard III buff) Philippa Langley. Her hunch resulted in a decade-long quest to find Richard's body, identify it, and give it the royal burial it deserved.
Here's what to know about the upcoming film.
The Lost King: The Plot
Richard III is the medieval king everyone loves to hate. Long thought to have been implicated in the murder of the sons of his brother Edward IV to ease his way to the throne, Richard gathered an army to face down a challenger for the kingship, Henry Tudor, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in August 1485. Richard made a bold charge across the battlefield and, after coming within a whisker of killing Henry (Richard got so close that Henry's standard bearer was killed), his force was overwhelmed, and the king died on the field. He was the last king of England to die in battle.
Richard III's mangled body was thought to have been dumped in a river. Popular images of Richard as a vain and insecure tyrant were fueled by his depiction by Shakespeare and have proliferated in literary, stage, and televisual portrayals ever since.
Langley thought differently. Feeling the king's reputation had been hard done over the years, Langley joined the Richard III Society and was carrying out research for a screenplay in Leicester in 2005 when, standing in a car park, she experienced the sensation that she was standing on Richard's grave. The struggle to get the powers that be and the academic world to take her seriously played out over the next seven years but ultimately saw the funding of an archeological dig. This led to the discovery of a simple coffin.
In the film, Langley progresses from a mild-mannered author with a passing interest in the king to an obsessive who gets the fright of her life when Richard appears in her living room, complete with crown and medieval finery.
The Lost King: The Cast & Crew
Philippa Langley is played by multiple Academy Award nominee Sally Hawkins, whose excellent showing comes on the back of faultless supporting performances last year as Princess Diana's maid in Spencer, and Jean Flitcroft, the long-suffering wife of amateur golfer, turned British Open competitor Maurice Flitcroft, in The Phantom of the Open.
Supporting Hawkins is a panoply of British acting talent. Chief among them is Steve Coogan, who has come a long way from his 1990s comedy origins as incompetent TV talk show host Alan Partridge. After breaking into Hollywood via a winning performance opposite Ben Stiller in Night at the Museum (2006), he has carved out a career in film. This includes an acclaimed performance opposite Dame Judi Dench in 2013's Philomena, which also saw Coogan earn an Oscar nomination for his screenplay work on the same film. He has also done voice work in the Despicable Me franchise and a 2019 turn opposite John C. Reilly in Stan and Ollie. Coogan plays Langley's ex-husband John, whose bemused reaction to Langley's quest underpins the film's levity.
Starring alongside Hawkins and Coogan is Harry Lloyd, best known for his appearances as Viserys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. Lloyd plays King Richard, and his straight-faced portrayal adds heft to counterbalance the film's gentle comedic chops. The principal cast is rounded out by veteran British comedy actor James Fleet (Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Vicar of Dibley) as John Ashdown-Hill, a real-life Richard III expert who discovered the DNA sequence of Richard III in 2005.
The Lost King benefits from a tried and tested production team. Coogan's Baby Cow is one of the production companies behind the film, and Coogan teamed up with Philomena collaborator Jeff Pope to write the script. Philomena's Oscar-nominated director Stephen Frears also returned, having enjoyed considerable success in Hollywood in recent years with Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) and Victoria and Abdul (2017). Moreover, the film score is provided by French composer (and long-time Frears collaborator) Alexandre Desplat (The Grand Budapest Hotel, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets).
Release Date
The Lost King premieres in the United Kingdom on October 7, 2022, and Australia on December 26, 2022. Earlier this month, IFC Films acquired distribution rights in North America ahead of its TIFF premiere, but a release date for the United States has yet to be announced.