David Farnor | On 04, Jul 2021

Sam Neill (Peter Rabbit, Jurassic Park) and Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained, No Time to Die) and Patrick Gibson (The OA, Tolkien) are teaming for up for new Sky Cinema original The Portable Door.

The fantasy-adventure-comedy is adapted from Tom Holt’s popular 7-book fantasy series. Jeffrey Walker (Ali’s Wedding, Lambs of God) will direct the film from a screenplay by Leon Ford (Griff the Invisible). Also joining the cast are Miranda Otto (Lord of the Rings, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Chris Pang (Crazy Rich Asians, Charlie’s Angels), Jessica De Gouw (Gretel & Hansel, Pennyworth), Rachel House (Soul, Thor: Ragnarok), Arka Das (Mulan, Lion), Damon Herriman (Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, Mr Inbetween) and newcomer Sophie Wilde (Eden, You Don’t Know Me).

It follows Paul Carpenter (Gibson) and Sophie Pettingel (Wilde), the lowly, put-upon interns who begin working at the mysterious London firm J.W. Wells & Co. They become steadily aware that their employers are anything but conventional. Charismatic villains Humphrey Wells (Waltz), the CEO of the company, and middle manager Dennis Tanner (Neill) are disrupting the world of magic by bringing modern corporate strategy to ancient magical practices, and Paul and Sophie discover the true agenda of the vast corporation where they work.

A Jim Henson Company, Story Bridge Films and Sky production, The Portable Door, a Sky Original is produced by Blanca Lista from The Jim Henson Company (Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance), and Todd Fellman from Story Bridge Films (Daybreakers, Bait 3D). The Jim Henson Company’s Lisa Henson and Chris Lytton are executive producing as well as Arclight Films’ Gary Hamilton, Brian Beckmann and Ying Ye, alongside Julia Stuart and Laura Grange from Sky and Stan’s Cailah Scobie and Shana Levine.

Julia Stuart, Director of Original Film at Sky comments: “It’s very exciting to continue to build our content offering in Original film with such legendary partners as The Jim Henson Company and Story Bridge Films alongside our friends at Arclight Films. The Portable Door is going to be an unmissable adventure with a very British sense of humour that I cannot wait to share with Sky Cinema customers across all our markets.”

Filming is now underway in Queensland, Australia, and Sky will release the film as a Sky Cinema original in the UK & Ireland, Germany and Italy.

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