Netflix has confirmed some of its new releases for 2024, including a new film from Frank Cottrell Boyce and a movie about the world’s first test-tube baby.
Joy tells the story of Oldham-born Louise Joy Brown, the first human conceived using IVF and will star Bill Nighy.
It’s told through the eyes of Jean Purdy – a young nurse and embryologist, who joined forces with scientist Robert Edwards and surgeon Patrick Steptoe to “unlock the puzzle of infertility.”
The film, which is written by Jack Thorne, from a story by Thorne and Rachel Mason looks at the 10-year journey to make the birth possible.
Louise Joy Brown was born in 1978 and dubbed a “test-tube baby” by the media. Robert Edwards shared the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
It’s directed by Sex Education’s Ben Taylor and stars Thomasin McKenzie (Purdy), James Norton (Edwards), and Bill Nighy (Steptoe).
It’s produced by Wildgaze’s Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, with executive producer Cameron McCracken for Pathe.
Bill Nighy will also appear in another Netflix film – The Beautiful Game, which is out next month.
Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce it follows Mal (Nighy), the manager of the England homeless football team, who takes his squad to Rome for the Homeless World Cup.
At the last minute they decide to bring with them a talented striker Vinny (Micheal Ward), but he must confront his own issues and once-promising past, in order to help the team win the cup and move on with his own life.
It’s directed by Thea Sharrock and produced by Blueprint Pictures’ Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin & Ben Knight with Anita Overland and Colin Farrell.
The executive producers are Diarmuid McKeown, Claudine Farrell and Ollie Madden and Daniel Battsek for Film4
The announcements are part of its global slate, which have just been trailed.
