Filming has commenced on director Pascal Chaumeil’s (Heartbreaker) adaptation of the Nick Hornby novel A Long Way Down.  The story revolves around a group of strangers who coincidentally meet on the top of a London skyscraper on New Year’s Eve where they individually had gone to commit suicide.  The four strangers make a pact to stay alive until Valentine’s Day at least, and the story follows this group of unlikely friends “as they try to pull back from the brink.”  The ensemble cast includes Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, and Imogen Poots, with Sam Neill and Rosamund Pike (Pride and Prejudice) also signing on.

The four central strangers are played by Brosnan, Collette, Paul, and Poots, who are set as a once-beloved TV personality, single mother, failed musician turned pizza-delivery boy and a “sassy teen” respectively.  Hornby is the author behind such great works as High Fidelity, About a Boy and Fever Pitch, so the source material is a solid foundation.  Jack Thorne (How I Live Now) wrote the screenplay and production is taking place in England and Spain.  Hit the jump to read the full press release (which includes a synopsis) and to check out the first image.

Jack Thorne (UK’s Skins) has been tapped to pen a film adaptation of the Helen Simonson novel Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand. Deadline reports that Thorne will write the script for producers Paula Mazur and Mitchell Kaplan (of the Mazur Kaplan Company) and Kevin McCormick (of Langley Park Pictures) who have acquired film rights to the book. Simonson’s debut effort was a bestseller upon being released by Random House in 2010 and centers on the relationship between a retired British army major and a Pakistani woman who runs his local convenience store. In addition to Skins and Major Pettigrew, Thorne also penned The Scouting Book for Boys and has adapted A Long Way Down by author Nick Hornby.

To learn more about Major Pettigrew, hit the jump for a synopsis of Simonson’s novel.