Douglas Booth as Shelley

The Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley biopic “A Storm in the Stars” has begun production in Ireland, with Elle Fanning as Mary Wollstoncraft Shelley, Douglas Booth as Percy Byssche Shelley and Bel Powley as Claire Clairmont. The cast has been spotted about Dublin in costume, rather shivering in the cold weather, despite woolen coats and cravats, while the recent casting of Ben Hardy has been announced (it’s unclear whether he is playing Byron, Polidori or Hogg), and Ciara Charteris is playing Shelley’s first wife Harriet, who committed suicide before Percy and Mary could be married.

The film is being directed by Saudi-Arabian director Haifaa Al-Mansour following her acclaimed debut film “Wadjda”. The film’s story from a screenplay by Romance novelist Emma Jensen with co-writing credit by Irish writer Conor McPherson, follows the period in the saga when Claire moves in with the Shelleys for the writing of the novel of “Frankenstein”, and the young author’s tempestuous love affair with Percy Shelley, the infamous and familiar trip to Lake Geneva with Lord Byron, Claire’s illegitimate child with Bryon and all the drama surrounding the rocky road that turned Mary into a legend. Filming has been spotted around the Collins Barracks in Dublin. The film should be released late in 2016, at least to the festival circuit. No US theatrical distributor has been announced, while international sales are being handled by the UK’s HanWay

The period of this film takes place after the journey of Mary, Percy and Clairmont to France and their early relationship explored in The Frankenstein Diaries, The Secret Memoirs of Mary Shelley. Douglas Booth is currently appearing in another Regency era literary mashup “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”. Elle Fanning most recently appeared in “Trumbo”.