George Michael Helped Develop A Movie Based On Wham!’s “Last Christmas”
Last month, Universal Pictures acquired Last Christmas, a holiday film with a script co-written by Emma Thompson and Bryony Kimmings that Paul Feig is attached to direct.
It turns out that the film was inspired by the 1984 Wham! classic “Last Christmas” (even beyond the name) and that the script was developed with George Michael before his death in 2016.
In a new interview with RadioTimes, co-writer Kimmings said that the idea for the project came from Thompson, Michael, and Thompson’s husband, actor Greg Wise. “When I came on board, George was up for it, he’d already signed something to say yes, but he’d passed away and Greg and Emma were still very keen to write it,” Kimmings said.
Kimmings also said that her draft of the script, which she handed in earlier this year, had a lot of “queer politics” and trans characters but that she doesn’t “know how much of that remains.”
“I doubt there’ll be a trans lead,” she told RadioTimes. “But I hope that there’s quite an element of queer in there, because you know it’s the story – it’s based on the song, Last Christmas. George was such a massive advocate for gay rights – and a massive gay himself! – so I hope there’s a gay narrative in there.”
Last Christmas, the film, is said to be a holiday romance set in London, though nothing about the plot beyond that is known yet.